illustrator_rob and tim bassler:
Here is the discussion forum you need to be on, and watching: My license for Adobe CS6 suddenly expired . There are a boatload of people that are having this same issue, and I'm one of them too.
I see you're an AAU SF student also, as I was too (I've put my MFA program on hold). Essentially, after I got ahold of the help desk guy at the school yesterday, he said that this "expiring license" is what AAU had negotiated with Adobe. I have had my CS software for two years, and nowhere on my software page does it say that the software license for CS5.5/6 is "temporary." At no time, either at providing the licenses to students or thereafter, did AAU state in person or writing that our software licenses were "temporary."
I highly recommend that you go -- right now -- and take a screenshot of your software page at AAU (software portal tab), as it will prove your software license for CS6 Master Collection is VALID AND LEGAL. Make this screenshot a png format, and keep it in a safe place; you're gonna need it. (If you don't have a screenshot program, there are any number of free, good ones at www.snapfiles.com).
As for getting ahold of Adobe via chat I had the same cr*p happen to me, but the time I did finally chat with a rep (to no avail, I might add) I did get a transcript of the chat sent to me. I have not been called by Adobe (as they said they would within 24 hours), and they certainly have no intention of contacting me to get this resolved. See my posts in the other forum.
Basically, illustrator_rob, the consensus is this: Adobe negotiated licenses with a bunch of colleges, and AAU was one of them. It's a bait and switch operation on the part of the schools and Adobe, in that (a) students were under the assumption that they had a permanentlicense to the software; and (b) students were never informed (in writing or otherwise) that they had a "temporary" license. All of this on Adobe's part is, if you recall, that they had just implemented (or were in the process of implementing) the CC version of the software, and Adobe figured the expired license holders would be forced to subscribe monthly to CC if they still wanted to use the software. Yeah, NO. Never. Not gonna happen.
This was/is a seriously stupid move on Adobe's part, and I suspect there will not be a remedy forthcoming for any of us in this dilemma. Can you say "class action lawsuit??"