If this is more about Movies, then the best options would be Softimage|XSI.
Learning to make objects takes a bit longer than the others, but it has the best and easiest controls for Rendering, Materials and Animation.
With Softimage|XSI Experience, your projects will be watermarked on render and during use; but it is free to use. If he purchases a Foundation version, then you can use that for final rendering as it is the only one which exports compatible files with the full retail version.
The tutorial PDFs that come with it are quite useful too.
I dislike modelling with it, and mapping textures; but it really is one of the best choices.
http://www.softimage.com/Products/EXP/v3/
You may also want your teacher to checkout the special deals, as currently they're offering Softimage|XSI 4.2 Foundation with ATi FireGL T2-128MB for $599.
Remember ALL of these programs will run decently on:
• Intel Pentium® III 1GHz
• 256MB RAM
• 32MB OpenGL® 1.4 / DirectX® 8.1 Compatible Cards
• 700MB Space for application
Now for each workstation, I'd recommend OpenGL cards... NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 are the best budget cards, you might be able to get some Quadro4 for under $100; but don't count on it.
512MB RAM is really recommended for high-polygon work, while 256MB is adequate; you'd be surprised at the huge difference 256MB more makes.
Movie Rendering, you'll want one of the machines to be pretty powerful. I'd recommend your teacher specially purchase a machine for doing this, the FireGL T2 should be good enough for general stuff if partnered with a powerful Pentium® 4 (2.5GHz+) and 512MB RAM. If possible though I would seriously recommened an NVIDIA QuadroFX 1000 / 2000, for anything remotely reasonable.
Something to remember is that Softimage is pretty awesome rendering wise, as it allows you to pool resources from all machines setup as Render Nodes. So this is something you can explain to your teacher, as when dealing with high-polygon work.. they become extremely demanding.
Another thing to note, is that he may wish to talk in the forums or to some people with a good working knowlage of Softimage|XSI and CGI. As generally you have to learn to export your movies as layers... Main Frame > Background > Particles > Screen Effects.
So say you have some character dancing in the middle of Trefalga Square in the rain, you'd render out the character dancing, then Trefalga, then the Rain, followed by visibility of the scene.
It would then be put back together in something like Adobe Premier Pro. Which allows you to use it as an editor to cut, blend, etc...
I know it all sounds quite complex, but once you understand the principals behind it and ease into it with simple thigns to begin with; then you can move onto more complex things.
Just remember to take everything slow, and remember to play a little to get used to the tools at your disposal. Softimage's tutorial PDFs are some of the best learning documents I've seen for a while.
