In answer to your second question first: You cannot renew or update an student educational version. Student educational versions are treated the same as Not For Resale (NFR) versions. So you will have to invest in a full commercial license. When you purchase a full commercial license of Revit Building, just like many of the other Autodesk products, you can purchase a one year subscription, which will assure you all updates that may be released in that period. Also you get other perks, such as tutorials not offered the non-subscription population.
I might note here that Revit Building, unlike most of the other Autodesk software solutions, is not backward compatible. This means that you cannot save back to a prior version of Revit Building and no one with a prior version can open your later version project file.
Mel Persin, AIA
