You can get all Autodesk's products free under their educational plan.

Just register at Autodesk as a student, give your details and you are good to go.

Note though that these programs are for non-commercial, single user only. If you get caught using these for commercial use, then AD will come down on you like a ton of bricks. Their lawyers take action even it if it is not really worth their while.

The draw back is that they don't have anything as good as MoI. Alias is very good for Nurbs surfacing but the learning curve is extremely steep.

However, you could import MoI models in to Max and render with Mental Ray.