That's a very small search space and the passwords would be easily brute-forceable if there isn't some strong rate limiting.

Well yes, there were additionally special characters and numbers in the passwords.

This was also before the internet and for less than 100 students. Not used for any homework or graded work whatsoever.

I'm sure if you cracked a password you could steal someone's Blobby Volley.exe, but that's about it.