GitHub Education approved, but Copilot still not updating to student benefits

[pokerface688]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Benefit Activation/Waiting

Hi everyone,

I've successfully passed the GitHub Education verification (Student Pack is active), but my Copilot subscription still shows as the free trial or Pro plan instead of the student benefits. I've tried signing out and back in, waiting for a few days, and even re-linking my account, but nothing changes. Has anyone faced this issue before? Is there a specific step I need to take to manually activate Copilot under the student pack? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

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[shalinchristian]

Hey! the Student Pack activation and Copilot unlocking are two separate steps, and GitHub's UI doesn't make that obvious at all. Here's what can work:

1. Confirm your verified student status
Go to https://education.github.com/benefits and make sure you see a green "Verified" badge next to your student status. If it says "pending" or "expired," Copilot won't unlock regardless of what you do next.

2. Manually request Copilot via the Education portal
Even with an active Student Pack, Copilot often doesn't auto-apply. Visit https://github.com/settings/copilot while logged in. If you're eligible, there should be a prompt to activate it for free under your student benefits — click through that explicitly.

3. Check for a conflicting paid plan
If you're on a free trial or were previously on a Pro trial, that can block the student benefit from applying. Cancel any active Copilot trial first under Billing settings (https://github.com/settings/billing), then wait 10–15 minutes and re-check the Copilot settings page.

4. Try a different browser / incognito session
Sounds silly, but cached session state has caused the portal to show stale plan info. A fresh login in incognito sometimes kicks things into the right state.

5. If nothing works — contact GitHub Support directly
Go to https://support.github.com and open a ticket with your verified student badge screenshot and a note about the Copilot plan mismatch. They can manually push the benefit to your account — took about 1–2 business days for me.

The Student Pack gives you Copilot Pro access, not just the free tier — so once it activates correctly, you should see "Copilot Pro (Student)" under your plan details.

Hope one of these steps unlocks it for you!