You don’t need a ChatGPT subscription or even an account to get started with OpenAI’s popular AI chatbot. You get better features if you do make an acocunt, however, including access to ChatGPT’s trendy new 4o image generation. An even better way to access ChatGPT features is with a paid subscription, which gives you access to more advanced tools, such as Deep Research, reasoning AI models like the o3 family, and preview models like GPT-4.5.
ChatGPT Plus is the cheapest option, starting at $20/month. That’s what you’d pay for Gemini Advanced, too, but Google also throws in lots of free cloud storage access with its premium AI offering.
I’ve been a ChatGPT Plus user for quite a while now, and I don’t see myself ditching it anytime soon. However, not all ChatGPT users might be willing to shell out money for another digital subscription.
If you’re a student, I’ve got some great news for you. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced that US and Canadian students can use ChatGPT Plus for free through the end of May. That’s a great deal, as students will save about $40/month for premium AI access. But why is OpenAI offering this deal?
“ChatGPT Plus is free for college students in the US and Canada through May!” Sam Altman wrote on X. Signing up for the deal is very easy. Just head over to this page on the OpenAI site and follow the instructions to verify that you’re eligible. OpenAI uses SheerID for verification, so students will likely already know if they’re eligible since it’s the same service used by other companies. Once you’ve determined that you’re eligible, you’ll just need to sign up for an account using your school email address.
Why is the company offering this deal? OpenAI may be reacting to a brilliant move from Anthropic earlier this week. The OpenAI rival announced a huge AI plan for education. Claude for Education includes a Learning Mode for Caude that gives students access to a tutor-like AI persona that will not provide answers outright.
Anthropic’s AI plan for college students makes sense in a world where using AI to cheat at school is incredibly easy. Claude’s Learning Mode should benefit critical thinking at school and provide tools to enhance learning rather than free access to AI that can do your homework.
Claude for Education also has features for faculty members, including teachers and administrative staff. Anthropic announced partnerships with a few colleges, which will provide access to Claude free of charge to students and employess. Presumably, the universities are paying for access.
OpenAI’s offer is nowhere close to that, but it’s also not something to disregard. OpenAI isn’t partnering with any education institution in the US or Canada like Anthropic did. There’s no special ChatGPT Learning Mode model for students either. But you still get a $40 discount for nearly two months of access to the best AI models OpenAI has to offer right now. You’ll get to explore the more advanced ChatGPT AI tools for the first time or free access to tools you might have been paying for befor Altman’s deal announcement.
AI can certainly come in handy for schoolwork, as long as you don’t use the AI only to do your homework and cheat your way through projects or exams.
Students deal aside, ChatGPT has been quite popular with users in the past week thanks to that new 4o image generation tool that went viral. The company registered millions of new users but also experienced issues with ChatGPT.
