Solid Edge is free for eternity for non professional use, as in the licence has no expiry date. When I used it that wasn't the case, so I couldn't see any certainty that I'd be able to continue using it and accessing any work I did later on. It's proper, professional software, equivalent to Inventor, Solidworks, Onshape, Fusion etc. If you don't plan to do any CNC work, there's no reason not to get stuck in!

IIRC, you end up with a watermark on any 2D drawings you create (big deal!) and apparently you can't open files in a paid for version of SE but that's academic here.
https://www.plm.automation.siemens.c...ware/community