The grant for Solidworks is easy to get here (https://www.solidworks.com/product/students), and you’ll find the link (along with other general information about all CAD systems) in this document: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mmvwPVaO8qjgIPSzsv_XGs2nt-q62UOh/view?usp=sharing
The link on the Solidworks webpage to click looks like this, scroll down 3/4 the page 'til you find the “play to win” section:
The grant is good for 2 years at a time, and we just re-upped our grant for 60 seats.
No professional-quality CAD software is “easy” to learn: that’s why community colleges have 2-year degree programs in mechanical design! But robotics students are both smart and determined, and the skills needed to build pre-made parts into assemblies are not as difficult as the initial part modeling. I think students are well served to learn several CAD packages, since so many are available free for educational use. Autodesk products have the advantage of being entry-level software with lots of support in the VEX forums, while SolidWorks is a high-end package with significantly more capabilities for those looking to explore them, but is also available free on the sponsorship even though it costs 5X the cost of Inventor.
If this is really important, then consider OnShape. OnShape was developed by the original owners of SolidWorks after Dassalt (who owns Catia) bought rights to SolidWorks. They went on to develop OnShape, which, although a high-end package resembling SolidWorks, can even run on a Chromebook because the actual processing takes place on the OnShape servers.