I don’t get it. From what I can tell, they added /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vscode.list with a third-party MS repository . . . and that’s it. You can now do sudo apt install code and get VS Code installed. If you don’t want VS Code, then don’t install it. At worst, Microsoft gets a log entry of you downloading the package list every time you do sudo apt update.

I don’t really like VS Code, myself, but it’s becoming something of an industry standard. Even in environments that are otherwise Linux-based. Lots of my coworkers use it even though we deploy on Linux. Making it easier for students to install is understandable.