So in the description you said edit, but here you say read (syllabus). If just reading is the requirement, there was a word reader, not sure if it is still available. I also believe once subscription expires, you still will be able to view, just edit.
Also what’s wrong with your school requiring word document and not providing a free license for the software? My college at least provided free license during my class.
As other alternatives I don’t have better than libre office (at the time I was using, libre office didn’t exist and I used OpenOffice, I still was using it, primarily, because of using Linux on my laptop) and submitted my work as PDF and didn’t have problems, but my class were requirements in computer science so I’m sure I wasn’t the only one doing it.