VCU Adobe Creative Cloud

Academic Technologies

IT Support Center

Student Accounts and Licenses for Adobe Creative Cloud

VCU Adobe Creative Cloud licenses are now included as part of the student software bundle for all currently-enrolled* VCU students!

As of June 1st, 2023, ALL currently-enrolled VCU students who are enrolled in at least one credit-bearing course for Summer 2023, Fall 2023, and Spring 2024 will automatically receive access to Adobe Creative Cloud within 1 week of the start of each academic term. Workshops, seminars, bootcamps, and/or pre-semester prerequisite courses that do not provide at least one credit are not eligible and students will not automatically receive a license early by enrolling in these types of courses. Continuing education students who are not enrolled in a credit-bearing course of any kind are not eligible to receive any Adobe software license from VCU. 

For continuing students who already have a Company/School VCU Adobe Federated account with an active Adobe Creative Cloud license, there is no need to "renew" or "claim" a license anymore. We've automated the process of adding licenses for newly-enrolled students and evaluating if students have graduated to prepare their accounts for deletion.

For each new academic term, VCU Adobe Federated accounts will be automatically created and licensed with access to the full Creative Cloud license for new VCU students enrolled in at least one credit-bearing course beginning only 10 calendar days before the start of classes.

Newly enrolled VCU students will receive an email with details about how to sign-in (also linked below) to begin using your VCU Adobe Federated account and install the Adobe Creative Cloud software on your device(s). 

Upon separation from VCU (either graduation or if you choose not to re-enroll) you are expected to uninstall all Adobe Creative Cloud software from your devices, or transition to a personally-paid license (this requires you to create a new, separately licensed Adobe ID account).

Access to your VCU Adobe Federated account and Adobe Creative Cloud license will be terminated once we observe no re-enrollment in at least one credit-bearing course for at least one full academic term.

To avoid data loss, we recommend that you review the VCU Adobe Asset Backup/Migration Guide located at https://go.vcu.edu/adobe/backup. 

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IMPORTANT: Students at VCU should NEVER purchase an Adobe Creative Cloud or other Adobe software license either directly through the adobe.com website OR through the Barnes & Noble ThinkEDU website. These sites do NOT offer the same specialized offering exclusively for VCU students. 

If you are presented with a "Trial/Buy Now" button or screen within ANY Adobe app or on ANY Adobe website, please submit a ticket at https://itsupport.vcu.edu under the Teaching & Learning > Instructional Resources > Adobe Software section. You may not be fully-signed in to your VCU Adobe account, or you may be experiencing a known issue with Adobe Enterprise licenses that causes this message to be displayed incorrectly.

If you have a VCU Adobe account, you will NEVER need to provide your credit/debit card info directly to Adobe. VCU uses a third-party platform that allows us to offer access to Adobe Creative Cloud exclusively for VCU students. 

* Additional Terms and Conditions

"Currently-enrolled" is defined as any VCU student who is enrolled in at least one credit-bearing course for the current academic term/semester.

  • Active VCU employees who are also currently-enrolled in at least one credit-bearing course at VCU and who maintain an active affiliation of "student" in addition to their employee affiliation of "employee", "faculty", or "affiliate" are also eligible for a student license to Adobe Creative Cloud.  
    • Employees who take classes and meet this definition of eligibility should first complete the Adobe Cloud Access request form to agree to additional terms and conditions regarding access to Adobe Cloud resources.
    • All requests from VCU employees for Adobe Cloud access will be reviewed within 10 business days by VCU Academic Technologies. Some employees who work for a restricted business unit will not be eligible for access to Adobe Cloud resources and will need to be placed in a restricted student license.
  • Students who are no longer currently-enrolled in at least one credit-bearing course will be automatically removed from their student license. This is to ensure VCU remains compliant with the terms and conditions of the Adobe Enterprise Term License Agreement.
  • To use any "shared device computer" in a computer lab, classroom, or other academic spaces including devices such as loaner laptops, all VCU students who are eligible will need to sign-in using their VCU Adobe Federated account. 

Additional details:

  • Adobe Creative Cloud may be installed on multiple computers but only used on one computer at a time.
  • You must use your VCU eID to sign-in to access Adobe Creative Cloud apps and features.
  • If you already have a license purchased through Adobe, these licenses may be canceled without incurring termination fees. Contact the VCU IT Support Center at 804-828-2227 to receive instructions on how to terminate your personal Adobe license agreement. 
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