Exactly. That's why I didn't get the educational version two years ago. The only limitation I know of is not being allowed to use it for commercial use. I'm also not sure if you can upgrade from it to Maya 5.?? or 6.0 at a later time. Go to alias.com and click on the education link and I guess look around. All the info should be there. There might be some more knowing people about this in the highend3d.com maya forums. I'm way too busy to look myself, but if you buy maya, the highend3d.com site is a good site to know about.