To our student community,

At GitHub, we believe the next generation of developers should have access to the latest industry technology. That’s why we provide students with free access to the GitHub Student Developer Pack, run the Campus Experts program to help student leaders build tech communities, and partner with Major League Hacking(MLH) and Hack Club to support student hackathons and youth-led coding communities. It’s also why we offer verified students free access to GitHub Copilot—today, nearly two million students are using it to build, learn, and explore new ideas.

Copilot is evolving quickly, with new capabilities, models, and experiences shipping fast. As Copilot evolves and the student community continues to grow, we need to make some adjustments to ensure we can provide sustainable, long-term GitHub Copilot access to students worldwide.

Our commitment to providing free access to GitHub Copilot for verified students is not changing. What is changing is how Copilot is packaged and managed for students.

What this means for you
Starting today, March 12, 2026, your Copilot access will be managed under a new GitHub Copilot Student plan, alongside your existing GitHub Education benefits. Your academic verification status will not change, and there is nothing you need to do to continue using Copilot. You will see that you are on the GitHub Copilot Student plan in the UI, and your existing premium request unit(PRU)entitlements will remain unchanged.

As part of this transition, however, some premium models, including GPT-5.4, and Claude Opus and Sonnet models, will no longer be available for self-selection under the GitHub Copilot Student Plan. We know this will be disappointing, but we’re making this change so we can keep Copilot free and accessible for millions of students around the world.

That said, through Auto mode, you'll continue to have access to a powerful set of models from providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. We'll keep adding new models and expanding the intelligence that helps match the right model to your task and workflow. We support a global community of students across thousands of universities and dozens of time zones, so we’re being intentional about how we roll out changes. Over the coming weeks, we will be making additional adjustments to available models or usage limits on certain features—the specifics of which we'll be testing with your feedback. You may notice temporary changes to your Copilot experience during this period. We will make sure to share full details and timelines before we ship broader changes.

We want your input
Your experience matters to us, and your feedback will directly shape how this plan evolves. Share your thoughts on GitHub Discussions—what's working, what gets in the way, and what you need most. We will also be hosting 1:1 conversations with students, educators, and Campus Experts, and using insights from our recent November 2025 student survey to help inform what's next.

GitHub's investment in students is not slowing down. We are committed to ensuring that Copilot remains a powerful, free tool for verified students, and we will continue to improve and expand the student experience over time.

We will share updates as we learn more from testing and your feedback.
Thank you for building with us.

The GitHub Education Team