Im going to say go with Pior's advice. There is really no point in dropping that much cash on something like a modeling tool. Blender is great for a lot of things and if there is hole burning in your pocket then there are some awesome scripts that are purchasable to add some really nice workflows and features. Textools,…
I don't think there has ever been such a thing, or was there ? If I understand correctly these were educational (as in, for students) versions. And regardless ... your friend would be much better off picking up Blender anyways. There is no good reason I can think of to tie oneself to a bloated commercial package like Maya…
Other than the EDU licencing, there's also 30 day trial versions available as well: https://www.autodesk.com.au/products/3ds-max/free-trial ...and I'd not necessarily agree with the above comment in terms of excessive feature sets or lack thereof. An example, I've used both Blender and Max for more than a few years in…