If the thought of all-nighters in the library and final exams is already making your shoulders tense up, this might just give you reason to relax: On April 3, OpenAI (the creators of the beloved AI chatbot ChatGPT) announced that it’s making ChatGPT Plus free for all college students in the U.S. and Canada through the end of May — yep, just in time for finals season.
ChatGPT — a free generative AI chatbot that creates humanlike dialogue — was first released back in November 2022, and many college students all across the country welcomed it with open arms as a way to assist in their research and studying. According to OpenAI, over one-third of 18-24 year olds in the U.S. use ChatGPT, and approximately a quarter of their messages are related to learning and schoolwork. On Feb. 1, 2023, OpenAI announced a pilot subscription plan for ChatGPT called ChatGPT Plus, which, for $20 a month, offered users priority access, faster responses, and the ability to use image and voice prompts. These features are in demand by college students in particular because they’re able to consolidate a lot of information very quickly in ways that other study tools can’t, like turning pages of notes into a pop quiz or creating images based on concepts. But $20 a month can be a pretty penny on a college budget — hence why OpenAI is offering up the service for free to help college students finish their semesters strong.
Students can access the free ChatGPT Plus by going to ChatGPT’s student site and entering their name, birthday, school, and email address to activate the promotion. ChatGPT partners with SheerID, a platform that helps brands verify consumer identities like students and military, so that’s how they’ll be able to ensure you’re a student who qualifies for this freebie.
“Today’s college students face enormous pressure to learn faster, tackle harder problems, and enter a workforce increasingly shaped by AI. Supporting their AI literacy means more than demonstrating how these tools work,” Leah Belsky, VP of Education at OpenAI, said in a statement provided to Her Campus. “It requires creating space for students to engage directly, experiment, learn from peers, and ask their own questions. We aim to offer these hands-on opportunities at the moments that matter most in their education.”
Alongside ChatGPT Plus, OpenAI is offering students access to OpenAI Academy (a free hub to build AI fluency), ChatGPT Lab (a college community where students swap prompts and ideas), and the ChatGPT Instagram page which posts all sorts of tips and prompts for students.
While the capabilities of ChatGPT Plus and generative AI in general are something to marvel at, it’s still advisable to proceed with caution when it comes to how you use it — especially with how a lot of colleges address the use of AI. Using ChatGPT as a jumping off point for research or creating study guides (rather than as a tool to cheat on any assignments) is a way to shave some time off your cram sessions without jeopardizing your degree. Just don’t become too reliant on it if you’re not ready to start forking over $20 a month once next semester rolls around!