Pricing

Is GitHub Copilot Free for Students? What Copilot Student Includes (and Doesn't)

Yes: verified students get Copilot Student free, but it isn't Copilot Pro. What the plan includes, how to get verified, and where its limits bite.

By Engineer Foodie Desk Oct 25, 2026 ✓ Sources checked Oct 25, 2026

8 min read

GitHub’s Copilot plans docs, Copilot Student setup guide and GitHub Education application docs checked Oct 25, 2026 on docs.github.com. Billing rules checked Oct 23, 2026 and paid-plan prices Oct 24, 2026 on GitHub’s own pages. All are linked under Sources. This page has no affiliate links (how we work).

Short answer: yes, GitHub Copilot is free for verified students, but the plan you get is Copilot Student, not Copilot Pro. GitHub’s Student Developer Pack puts it this way: “GitHub Copilot Student is available to verified students. The plan includes unlimited code completions and an allowance of GitHub AI Credits, plus limited chat and agent usage with models available through auto model selection only” (GitHub Education, checked Oct 22, 2026).

So: unlimited completions, the cloud agent, PR summaries and code review, all at $0. What you don’t get is model choice. GitHub picks the model for you, and the size of your chat and agent allowance isn’t published. There’s no fixed end date either. GitHub “reevaluates your eligibility every month” (GitHub Docs, checked Oct 25, 2026).

We haven’t tested Copilot Student. Everything below comes from GitHub’s own docs and pages.

The short answer, dated

Free for students? Yes. GitHub’s plans docs list Copilot Student at “Free” and say “Available to verified students. Get access to Copilot’s features for free” (checked Oct 25, 2026).
Is it Copilot Pro? No. GitHub lists two free individual plans, “Copilot Free and Copilot Student”, and three paid ones, “Copilot Pro, Copilot Pro+, and Copilot Max”.
Unlimited? Completions, yes. Chat and agent use run on “an allowance of GitHub AI Credits” whose size isn’t published.
How long? No end date is published. Eligibility is re-checked every month, so it lasts while you’re a verified student.
Still free in 2026? Yes, as of Oct 25, 2026.

What Copilot Student includes

From GitHub’s plans docs (checked Oct 25, 2026) and billing docs (checked Oct 23, 2026):

Unlimited code completions. “Copilot Free includes 2000 code completions per month and Copilot Student includes unlimited code completions.”
Chat, agent mode and MCP. All included. Chat and agents draw on your AI-credit allowance.
Copilot cloud agent. Included on Student. Not on Free. This is the one that takes a task and works on it in the background.
Copilot code review and PR summaries. Both included. On Free, code review is only “Review selection” in VS Code, and PR summaries aren’t included.
Copilot CLI and the Copilot app. “All plans include Copilot CLI and the Copilot app.”
Custom instructions and prompt files. Included, same as every individual plan.

And what it doesn’t include:

Model choice. “On Copilot Free and Copilot Student plans, access to models is available through auto model selection only.” You can’t pick Claude Opus or a specific GPT model. GitHub picks.
Third-party agents. The docs say Student “Excludes third-party agents”. Pro and up include them in public preview.
A published allowance. Paid plans print their numbers (Pro: 1,500 AI credits a month). Student gets “An allowance of GitHub AI Credits”. No number.
Extra credits. Buying more credits is a paid-plan feature; Free shows “Not included” (GitHub Copilot plans, checked Oct 24, 2026). GitHub doesn’t list Student in that row, so don’t count on buying more.

Credits reset “at 00:00:00 UTC on the first day of each calendar month” and “do not carry over” (billing docs, checked Oct 23, 2026). If you run out of chat mid-month, GitHub’s VS Code FAQ notes that you “can still use inline suggestions” after hitting the AI-credit limit.

GitHub prints exact credit numbers for every paid plan down to the flex allotment, then gives students “an allowance”. You’re asking people with exams and deadlines to plan around a number they can’t see. Publish it.

Source: GitHub Copilot plans docs, checked Oct 25, 2026

Copilot Student vs Free vs Pro

Plan	Price	Models	Cloud agent	Source
Free	$0	Auto only	No	Docs
Student	$0 (verified)	Auto only	Yes	Docs
Pro	$10/month	Pick from list	Yes	Docs
Pro+	$39/month	Adds Opus etc.	Yes	Docs

Plans docs checked Oct 25, 2026; prices also on GitHub’s plans page, checked Oct 24, 2026.

The gap between Student and Free is bigger than it looks. Free caps completions at 2,000 a month and skips the cloud agent and PR summaries. Student removes the completion cap and adds both.

The gap between Student and Pro is mostly models and visibility. Pro is $10 a month with 1,500 AI credits (1,000 base plus 500 flex) and a model list that includes Claude Sonnet 5.5 and GPT-6 Luna. Pro+ at $39 adds Claude Opus 5.5 and others. Full breakdown in GitHub Copilot Pro vs Pro+ and GitHub Copilot cost.

How to get Copilot Student

Step 1: get verified with GitHub Education. You qualify if you (GitHub Docs, checked Oct 25, 2026):

are enrolled in “a degree- or diploma-granting program, such as a high school, college, university, or homeschool”
can provide documents that prove your current student status
own a GitHub personal account
are “at least 13 years old”

Accepted proof: a picture of your school ID with a current enrollment date, your class schedule, your transcript, or an affiliation or enrollment verification letter. If recent applicants from your school verified with an academic email, you’ll be asked for one too, so add and verify it on your GitHub account first. If your school doesn’t issue emails, GitHub asks for official documentation of that policy.

To apply, go to your Education benefits settings, click Start an application, fill in the form and submit.

Step 2: activate Copilot Student. From GitHub’s setup guide (checked Oct 25, 2026):

Go to https://github.com/settings/education/benefits.
Under “Free GitHub developer resources for students and teachers”, click Learn more.
Follow the prompts to activate Copilot Student and set your Copilot use policies.

If you still see Copilot Free or a checkout page: “Approval and Copilot activation are separate steps. The student benefit can take several days to finish applying after verification.” Try your Copilot settings or https://github.com/github-copilot/free_signup. And GitHub’s own advice: “If only paid options appear, do not complete a purchase.” Wait a few days, then contact GitHub Support.

How long Copilot Student lasts

GitHub publishes no fixed term. No “one year”, no “four years”. The only rule is that GitHub “reevaluates your eligibility every month” (setup guide, checked Oct 25, 2026). In practice, that means it lasts as long as your verification holds.

What happens on the day it ends isn’t spelled out in the docs we checked. Your options are the ones every other user has: Copilot Free at $0 with 2,000 completions a month, or Pro at $10. Copilot Free is only available to individuals “who don’t have access to Copilot through an organization or enterprise”, so if your first job gives you Copilot Business, that’s what you’ll use.

Teachers: a different deal. GitHub’s docs say “Verified teachers, and maintainers of popular open source projects may be eligible for free access to Copilot Pro.” That’s the one group the docs tie to free Pro. Students get Student.

Here’s what I’d do

Apply for GitHub Education today if you’re enrolled anywhere that grants a degree or diploma, high school included. Have a dated school ID or enrollment letter ready.

Don’t pay while you wait. Activation can take several days after approval. If a checkout page appears, close it.

Use the cloud agent for the boring stuff. It’s the biggest thing Student has over Free. Hand it the chores, keep chat credits for the hard questions.

Keep chat for questions, completions for typing. Completions are unlimited; the AI-credit allowance isn’t published. Credits reset on the 1st (5:30 AM IST).

Need a specific model for a project? That’s when Pro at $10 earns its keep. Until then, auto selection is fine.

Shopping other student deals? Kiro, Google and OpenAI all publish one; Cursor doesn’t. See Cursor student discount for the full roundup, GitHub Copilot free plan for Free, and AI coding tools compared for everything else.

Want Claude as well? Is there a Claude student discount? covers what Anthropic offers students today.

Also worth checking: the Antigravity student discount, which covers Google’s student plan for its coding agent.

Not eligible for student access? GitHub Copilot Pro free trial covers the other ways to try Pro.

FAQ

Is GitHub Copilot free for students? Yes, verified students get Copilot Student at no cost, with unlimited code completions and an unpublished AI-credit allowance.

Is GitHub Copilot Pro free for students? No, students get Copilot Student, a separate free plan with auto model selection only; GitHub says verified teachers and popular open source maintainers may get free Pro.

Is Copilot Student unlimited? Code completions are unlimited, but chat and agent use draw on an AI-credit allowance whose size GitHub doesn’t publish.

How long is GitHub Copilot free for students? GitHub publishes no fixed term; it re-checks your student eligibility every month.

Is GitHub Copilot still free for students in 2026? Yes, Copilot Student is listed as free for verified students on GitHub’s plans docs as of Oct 25, 2026.

Sources

GitHub Copilot plans docs (Copilot Student free, auto model selection, excludes third-party agents, feature tables, teachers/maintainers note, Free 2,000 completions): https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/get-started/plans (verified 2026-10-25)
GitHub Docs, Access Copilot for free as a student (monthly eligibility check, activation steps, troubleshooting): https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/how-tos/copilot-on-github/set-up-copilot/enable-copilot/set-up-for-students (verified 2026-10-25)
GitHub Docs, Apply to GitHub Education as a student (eligibility, proof documents, academic email): https://docs.github.com/en/education/about-github-education/github-education-for-students/apply-to-github-education-as-a-student (verified 2026-10-25)
GitHub Student Developer Pack (Copilot Student description): https://education.github.com/pack (verified 2026-10-22)
GitHub Copilot billing docs (Student unlimited completions, credit reset on the 1st at 00:00 UTC, no carry-over): https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/concepts/billing-and-usage/individuals/billing (verified 2026-10-23)
GitHub Copilot plans page (Pro $10, Pro+ $39, Max $100, AI credits, extra credits): https://github.com/features/copilot/plans (verified 2026-10-24)
VS Code agent troubleshooting FAQ (inline suggestions after AI-credit limit): https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/agents/agent-troubleshooting/faq (verified 2026-10-23)