A resolution supporting free Adobe Creative Cloud licenses for all students will be presented at UT Senate’s next general assembly this Thursday.

The Adobe Creative Cloud is a cluster of applications — such as Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe Photoshop — with different uses for designing and creating media products. Students in the Moody College of Communication, College of Fine Arts and School of Architecture frequently encounter assignments in their curriculum that require the use of these types of applications, making them heavy users of this software. The current price for a yearly subscription to the Cloud is $239.88, which can be billed monthly at $19.99 a month. The Campus Computer Store offers a yearly discounted rate of $195.95 for one full school year, which decreases as the school year progresses.

“The Adobe suite is really expensive and really necessary for a lot of our curriculum,” said Eric Hayes, architecture senior and architecture representative for Student Government. “The Campus Computer Store has a deal, but it’s really not cheap enough. We’re just trying to urge the University to take action and make these tools available to everyone.”

Many institutions — including some UT system schools – offer the Adobe Creative Cloud to students for free or at an extremely discounted rate, such as UT-San Antonio. 

“Some of the free ones are Clemson, Penn State, all of the (University of) New Mexico schools and Yale,” said Maddie Cannings, art history representative for Fine Arts Council. “Then among the ones that have extremely discounted (subscription rates) are Austin Community College, San Diego State University, University of Louisville and Chapman University. It’s a ton.”

Cannings said students have tried to pass all types of initiatives to increase access to the Adobe Cloud over the past several years with little success. The resolution has been in the works since last spring, she said. Cannings found that there were a lot of reports of students not having access to the Cloud and needing it for classes. 

“I was talking to all my studio art friends, and they were saying that this was a big issue,” art history sophomore Cannings said. “Then I was talking to the president of our organization, and the two of us started working together on this. We talked to the School of Architecture president and an SG member, and it kind of snowballed into the four of us working together and writing a big resolution about this.”

Students are currently able to access the Adobe Cloud at labs in University facilities. However, most of these labs are not 24/7, so students who are not willing to pay the price to buy Adobe have to work around these hours.

“For my Digital Storytelling class, I have to make a video project, a little package,” journalism freshman Kylie Rodriguez said. “I have to use Adobe, and my two options are going to the lab or purchasing the Adobe package, which I’m currently trying to purchase to edit my video.”