I have to tell you that my "day" job is grant research and your post struck me as interesting.  If you can figure out the right "curve" you may be able to get funding for this kind of program for your students.

The naked V3 does bring up some issues I'm sure (that I hadn't thought of).

I'm also wondering if its your plan for each of the students to have their own software program or whether you will be teaching using A source program.

If you want them to model individual simple models then there is a simple modeling program that I have called Spatch.  I have had this program for a while now and I don't know if its still available for free but it is a great program for simple modeling.

By the way, just as a side note - I live near an art school - Temple's Tyler School of Art and I was reading how some of the students use 3d programs for their renderings - one I specifically remember is a jewelery design student that uses the Rhino program to design her jewelery..