The integrated submission scripts can pull a lot more information about the scene such as frame ranges and output paths. It also allows for many more options such as RenderMan export to RIB and tile rendering.
In production, it’s rare for a studio to use the Monitor for everything.
I’d say the only challenge is making sure the students copy the files to their “maya/startup” folder. We have an installer to support that these days and I’d give it a try. You can find details here.