LINQ to SQL alternative C# Visual Studio 2017 MVC I'm working as a teacher with college students, learning ASP.NET MVC with C#. 

One pedagogical problem I have in this environment is how to do CRUD (create, delete, update, select and inner join etc) in the simplest way? 

With ASP 6.0 the students had a big control when querying db with plain SQL. With Entity Framework, the learning curve is harder with the code used to get data from database etc.

After almost 20 years working with php/apache/mysql and asp/ms access there is hard to know which way to go, giving the students "basic/intermediate" knowledge in building dynamic responsive websites connecting to db.

A couple of years ago we started focus on c#.net and sql-server/LocalDB. A great decision! Two years ago we dived into ASP.NET MVC. Fun, but really hard to penetrate for the students. To be more exact, LINQ to SQL, MVC and entity framework are hard to handle in "this levels" and with shorter courses. Are there any good alternatives for LINQ to SQL working in Visual Studio 2017?
I cannot think of a better alternative for LINQ to SQL, especially in Visual Studio 2017. You have said that you have spent 2 years already into MVC, which means, familiarity with MVC can be assumed. 

If so, I would say that don't give up on the LINQ + SQL + EF + MVC ( I will simply refer to this as the MVC combo ) combo yet. I am guessing that you have already looked at this link. I use that in my introductory sessions on MVC, and even newcomers ( I mean, people who have not even tried MVC, or any of the MVC combo components ) have found it easy to use. In my experience, 10 to 15 hours is all it takes to train folks on that (at least the basics). 

Give it a go, and yes, if you have questions about that link as you teach the different sections, come back and post questions here. We will take care of it for you.