I'm not sure if your academic version is the same thing as mine.
Indiana University has a contract with Microsoft and students can buy any Microsoft product for $5 per CD. (Yes, this means Visual Studio costs a whopping $35).
My copy of XP Pro that I purchased (yes, yes I already said for $5). Is similar to the corporate edition in that it doesn't require any sort of product activation. Other than that, there are no differences.