My ISP is a large corporation and can say "poof, I herby revoke your access to the internet" and I'd be pretty screwed. Miss a payment there and suddenly that distance learning class goes away too. Same for if you miss a payment to the university FWIW.

There are pros to this arrangement. Laptops get stolen all the time at universities and students aren't always known to keep great backups. Being able to log-on from anywhere (in one of those disappearing labs, another student's laptop or your smartphone) and having access to your stuff is a big win.

I think it's interesting and while wouldn't want this to be the only option I can definitely see the benefit of it being an option.