On choosing a license for software in academia
The software developed by most academics has no commercial value. It is a research product, similar to a paper, and is usually shared with other researchers by hosting it on the researcher’s web page (as I do) or on GitHub or other repositories. There is usually no need for any sort of license, but some people will include a license to make clear what use by others of their code they see as acceptable.
There is also no need for the university to be involved in any of these decisions, just like the university doesn’t tell researchers what “license” to use for the papers they publish. I think your main source of confusion is related to thinking of research code as some kind of valuable property that needs to be protected. In 99% of cases that’s not the reality.