Cursor AI for Students: What to Do Now the Free Year Ended

Cursor stopped new sign-ups for its student discount on June 25, 2026, so the free Pro year many students are still looking for can no longer be claimed. Four routes remain: the free Hobby plan, credits handed out at campus events, a credit request form for graduate researchers, and Copilot Student, which is free for verified students on GitHub Education.

Find your route first

Read these in order and stop at the first one that describes you.

1. You already redeemed the student discount. There is nothing to claim again. Cursor confirms you keep your current rate until the plan expires. Put that expiry date in your calendar, because the subscription then continues at the regular $20 per month unless you cancel.
2. You are an undergraduate. There is no application form to hunt for. Cursor now hands out student credits and discounts at on-campus and online events, and points to a campus newsletter for the dates. The decision is whether your campus actually runs one this term; if it does not, route 4 is your real answer.
3. You are a master's student, PhD candidate, academic researcher or educator. Cursor kept a credit request form for you. It is the only self-serve route it still offers, so it is worth the ten minutes, even though credits are granted case by case rather than automatically.
4. You need something working today at zero cost. Verified students on GitHub Education get Copilot's features free, and the verification is self-serve, though GitHub still has to approve it.

What ended, and what survived it

Cursor's student discount page is explicit about both the date and the reason: new sign-ups for the legacy student discount stopped on June 25, 2026, because the program had become a target for fraud and was holding Cursor back from reaching students globally. Its students page now answers the discount question with "anyone can get started with Cursor for free" and a pointer to event promotions.

Two things survived. An existing discounted subscription holds its rate until it expires. And the end of that year is a billing event rather than a shutdown: Pro simply continues at $20 per month unless you cancel it.

That creates one specific mistake to avoid. Do not buy Pro now on the assumption that a student rate can be applied backwards once you find the right form. For undergraduates there is no longer a form to find.

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Approval and activation are separate steps, so a paid checkout page is not proof that you were rejected.

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Claim Copilot Student without paying by accident

GitHub's setup guide for students gives the whole path, and it carries one failure mode worth knowing before you start.

1. Open your education benefits page. If you are not verified yet, click Start an application and complete the verification.
2. Under "Free GitHub developer resources for students and teachers", click Learn more.
3. Follow the prompts to activate Copilot Student, setting the Copilot use policies you want.

Now the part that costs people money. Approval and activation are two separate steps, and the benefit can take several days to finish applying after your verification is approved. Your account can therefore show Copilot Free, a trial, or a paid checkout page while you are already eligible. GitHub's instruction for exactly that state is blunt: if only paid options appear, do not complete a purchase. Wait a few days and try again, and contact support only if it persists.

One upkeep detail that decides whether this lasts: GitHub reevaluates eligibility every month. Keep the school email on the account, and expect to lose the benefit once you no longer qualify as a student.

What the free Cursor tier actually covers

Hobby is Cursor's free plan, and it is not a time-limited trial. The pricing and plans page describes it as core features with limited usage: Agent, Chat and Tab completions on the Auto model. For a student reading and editing a normal coursework repository, the binding constraint is usage, not missing features.

The paid ladder above it is Pro at $20 per month, Pro+ at $60 and Ultra at $200. There is also one regional exception that is easy to miss: a Start plan sold in India only, at ₹649 per month, tax inclusive. If you are studying in India, that is a materially different decision from the $20 one.

When Hobby's usage limits do start to bite, the cheapest next move is usually a change of mode rather than a purchase: point an agent you already have at the repository you already own. That is the argument in Lovable alternatives: start with the repo you already own, and it transfers directly to a coursework repo. If the terminal is where you end up, Claude Code Reddit: seven mistakes and the fix for each covers what goes wrong first.

If you do decide to pay, settle three things before the card goes in: which plan actually carries the feature you need, what the renewal terms say, and where the cancellation path is. Those checks are worked through for a different tool in Is Base44 legit? The 7 checks before you pay, and they transfer cleanly to any subscription bought on a student budget.

FAQ

Is Cursor bringing a student discount back? Cursor has not announced a replacement self-serve discount. Its help page says students still get discounts and credits through on-campus and online events this fall, and it offers a campus newsletter sign-up for the dates.

I am mid-subscription on the old student rate. Does it hold? Yes. Cursor states that you keep your current rate until your plan expires. After that, Pro resumes at $20 per month unless you cancel.