Found out my college is teaching off of old version of Illustrator

This was my experience in college as well. Several of my professors clearly used the exact same teaching materials and assigned the exact same assignments every year regardless of version changes or continued relevance.

I even had a digi photography class that met twice a week for 3 hours.. We spent the first hour of the first class each week watching an instructional video about digital cameras that was produced in 1999 (i was taking the class around 2010). After we watched a portion of the video, the professor would open up a powerpoint presentation that was clearly a companion document to the instructional video.. And I know for a fact that the professor didn't create this powerpoint... because he's an ESL immigrant from japan who moved here late in life and his english wasn't great.. Listening to him read the powerpoint (seemingly for the very first time) revealed that many of the words in the presentation are words he didn't know/understand, and would simply try his best to get through it in a way that roughly sounded like that word and then just move on, even though it was clear he didn't understand the context of what he was reading.

So now we're 1.5hours into our 6 hours of weekly class and we've watched an ancient video, and had a powerpoint presentation poorly read to us... It was at this time that the professor would collect last week's assignment and assign this week's assignment.... Then we were "free to go work on your assignment... and don't show up on thursday either. just work on your assignment."

....... which means that out of 6 hours/week that we paid for, we were receiving 1.5 hours of "instruction" (for which the professor did no preparation at all..) and then 4.5 hours of "just go take some pictures by yourself and leave me alone."

Unfortunately, this is not a unique experience in  my understanding... unfortunately, colleges are businesses first, and i'm simply not optimistic that they're going to be receptive to your complaint. I sincerely hope I'm wrong, though.

Having said that, not a whole lot has changed with how illustrator functions. Especially the core stuff like the pen tool, selection tools, magic wand, transparency, etc. Some stuff has changed on the scripting side of things, but for the most part newer versions of illustrator just have more features than older ones (as well as better stability and aversion to crashing). If it were me making this case to your college, i would focus on the relevance of the class material to the current state of the art. You're paying for an education so that you can translate those skills to the workforce. The best way that you can be setup to transfer your skills to the workforce is to learn on modern up to date software with modern and up to date lesson plans that teach you the skills and tools you need to know today that maybe someone didn't need to know 10-15 years ago.

Best of luck. Keep us updated.

Just curious--what else do they teach besides Photoshop and Illustrator for $5000? Is the software just a small part of the overall semester classes?

Subtle changes in the tools panel since CS6

Please see the features here:

Illustrator CC new features | New Export Assets panel

I sympathize.  Many schools are teaching from a syllabus that's at least 2 and sometime as much as 6 versions behind the currently available software.   It's a challenge to keep up with Adobe's rapid release cycle where dot releases come out 2 or 3 times a year.

CS6 is different from CC 2017.  Although much in Illustrator has remained the same for many years, it's the subtle UI changes that will frustrate you. You can download previous versions of Creative Cloud software from your CC Desktop App.   NOTE:  trial members don't have this option.  You must have a paid membership to access Previous Versions.  See screenshot.

Nancy