I really like they use Hey to show how a real application can be done using rails. DHH shows the internals of Hey in some tutorial and I found it very interesting.
I can confirm that University pays for MS EES Agreement. In return you can, for example, install office on every pc in Active Directory, upgrade to every windows operating system on pc owned by the University (for example you buy Windows Home on a pc, you can upgrade to professional edition) and so on.
I think you mean that Universities pay some MS EES Agreement to Microsoft in order to offer OS updates, Office and other MS software for students and staff.