OpenAI provides free ChatGPT Plus to college students, but there are conditions.

OpenAI has made access to ChatGPT Plus free for college students as part of its mission to empower education with AI. The offer, though, is so far restricted to the U.S. and Canada and is valid till May end. As per this temporary offer, OpenAI is offering its paid services like GPT-4o, sophisticated file analysis, and voice interactions, which normally come with a $20/month subscription.

As per OpenAI, the program is targeted at helping students during their final exams through provision of advanced AI tools at no subscription fee. The company intends to position its AI platform as a study help for overburdened students, especially around exam crunch period. Eligible students under the program will benefit from the following premium services free of charge:

GPT-4o (OpenAI's fastest and most advanced model)

File uploads (for research paper, dataset, and essay analysis)

Voice mode (enabling voice chats with ChatGPT)

Image creation (through DALLE for artistic work)

To add to free access of ChatGPT Plus, OpenAI is introducing educational content, such as the OpenAI Academy that seeks to enable students to learn more about AI, and ChatGPT Lab, an arena for peer learning and prompt improvement.

According to Forbes, over a third of young adults in the U.S. are already using ChatGPT to get academic assistance. The California State University system, for example, has partnered with OpenAI to implement AI-based learning assistance. The new program, providing an upgraded version for free, will further assist OpenAI in increasing the application of its AI platform within academic environments. Free access also enables OpenAI to collect more academically applicable data to enhance its models.

Most notably, OpenAI's action is part of a larger movement of AI firms bringing their technology into the classroom. One day before OpenAI made its announcement, Anthropic released Claude for Education, a specialized version of its AI assistant aimed at universities. As part of its expansion into academe, Anthropic has partnered with Northeastern University, the London School of Economics (LSE), and Champlain College. It has also partnered with Internet2—a non-profit organization that constructs university tech infrastructure—and Instructure, the manufacturer of Canvas. The companies say these partnerships are designed to make AI tools accessible equally to universities as they implement AI in their learning environments.

Meanwhile, with increased usage of AI in education, issues regarding its influence on the educational sector persist. As AI is becoming a key resource for learning and research purposes, there is a possibility that universities will need to reconsider evaluation strategies to help students form critical thinking skills instead of merely depending on AI responses.