[mschuster91]

> The end result is the same, you can’t use the hardware after the time period is up, but for some reason the admin feels much more comfortable about it.

Simple: predictability. With a subscription based model, admin has to deal with recurring (monthly / yearly) payments, and the possibility is always there that whatever SaaS you choose it gets bought up and discontinued. Something you own and host yourself, even if it gets useless after three years, does not incur any administrative overhead and there is no risk of the provider vanishing. Also, there are no "surprise auto renewals" or random price hikes.

> 2. It’s hard get funding to hire someone to set up a service to transfer large amounts of data from different places.

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 40 ton truck filled with SD cards. Joke aside: especially off-campus buildings have ... less than optimal Internet / fibre connections and those that do exist are often enough at enough load to make it unwise to shuffle large amounts of data through them without disrupting ongoing operations.