Yes ofcourse, considering bitcoin was so cheap and so new back then, it made sense to distribute it among the students.
I wonder if any of those students still hold their coins they would be so happy right now.
I guess what MIT did back then was an important step for bitcoin and it did created an impact in starting the widespread adoption.
Btc isn't really cheap now. Will it mean it's more valuable now to hodl than to gave it away? It's sad but this is the mindset of the people. They will only value things once they know that they can benefit out of it. It is said that the students are given an option to spend their coins so they spend it right away. If not then some will likely sell it during the pump but if there are students who manage to keep their btc up until now, I don't think their reaction is happy because this year is a dump year. They will regret and think they should have sold their btc last year although there is still a chance for the bull to return so maybe they will wait once more.
That's probably the right thing to do anyway. Everyone knows the ATH of bitcoin and would not sell it at this price.
But even if those MIT students were holding BTC until know they are already having lots of gains and it won't harm them to sell it at this price.
A trader should never regret once he has sold in profit. Besides that these students had got it as a reward and so they can sell it at any price given that they had still hold on to it.