GitHub Education verification repeatedly rejected even after updating profile and billing name

[965459329-source]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Question

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Verification Help & Guidance

Hi everyone,

Hi GitHub Education Community,

My GitHub Education student applications keep getting rejected.

Account: @965459329-source
Application type: Student
Latest rejection date: July 6, 2026

The Education benefits page shows my recent applications as Rejected. Earlier emails mentioned that my GitHub profile name and billing information should match my academic affiliation document. I have updated both my GitHub profile name and billing information to match my academic document, logged out and logged back in, and reapplied.

However, the application is still rejected, and the latest message only gives a general rejection reason without specific details.

I have checked the following:

• My GitHub profile name matches my academic document.
• My GitHub billing first name and last name are completed.
• I am not using a VPN or proxy.
• Browser and operating system location access are enabled.
• My academic document shows my name, school information, and current student status.

Could someone please advise what else I should check, or whether I should open a GitHub Education support ticket for manual review? I can provide my academic document privately through the official support channel if needed.

Thank you.

[blazee14]

Hi, since you've already ruled out the most common causes, the issue is probably something more specific to the document itself or your institution's automated recognition. A few additional things worth checking:

Institution recognition in the database: Even if your name and billing info match, GitHub Education also checks that your school/university name matches its internal database of recognized institutions. If your document uses an abbreviation, an alternate name, or a different translation than how it's officially registered, the system can reject it even when everything else is correct.
Image quality for OCR: Even if the document shows all the required info, if the image has low resolution, heavy compression, a security-pattern background, or was captured at an angle, the automated OCR system can fail to "read" the text even though it looks fine to the eye. It's worth trying to upload the document as a PDF instead of an image, if the form allows it.
Document format vs. expected type: Check whether the document you're submitting is the specific type GitHub expects for your country/institution (sometimes they want an enrollment letter instead of a student ID, or vice versa). The "Why wasn't my application approved?" article linked in the rejection email usually details the preferred document type for your case.
Yes, open a support ticket: Since you've already gone through the full standard checklist and it's still failing, it's definitely worth opening a case through https://support.github.com/contact instead of continuing to retry the automated form. There you can lay out everything you've already verified (as you did here) and offer the document privately for manual review — much more efficient than continuing with the automated system after multiple failures with the same correct information.

Mention in the ticket the dates of your previous attempts (July 6, 2026) so it's clear this is a repeated pattern, not a one-off glitch.