As the computer nerd in my friends/family circle, Im constantly being gifted old PCs from people. Some I keep and repurpose into servers/other things and others I just recycle for them. I also am an avid PC gamer so when my rig gets retired I usually upgrade the other servers internals from parts I had left over. Don’t know if something else is viable for you to keep costs down, even if you can get the PC without a HDD but everything else.
The thing they’re refusing to do by forcing everyone to snitch on themselves? Yeah I’ve heard of it and when you investigate shit you don’t gotta rely on people arbitrarily snitching with 0 evidence just to avoid the bull shit. What’s next? Someone gets a DUI on campus and they bill everyone for the damage and take away their licenses?