College students in the United States and Canada can now use ChatGPT Plus for free — at least until the end of May.
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is giving students temporary access to its paid features just in time for final exams. Normally, ChatGPT Plus costs $20 a month and includes access to advanced AI models like GPT-4 (referred to as GPT-01), as well as the newer 03-mini and 03-high models that aren’t available in the free version.
This limited-time offer is part of what OpenAI is calling an “experimental program.” Right now, it’s only available to students in the US and Canada, and there’s no guarantee it will expand to other schools or countries.
To get the free subscription, students will need to verify their status through a secure system called SheerID. It checks enrollment details using official school records or asks students to log in through their university accounts to confirm eligibility.
According to OpenAI’s FAQ, the offer will last until the end of May. After that, students may have to pay again unless the program is extended.
This move follows a similar step by OpenAI’s competitor Anthropic, which recently launched “Claude for Education,” a tool that helps students learn using AI.
