Inquiry About GitHub Student Plan Availability

[anilkarki303]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Question

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Copilot in GitHub

Body

Dear GitHub Support Team,

I recently saw the notice stating that starting April 20, 2026, new sign-ups for Copilot Pro, Copilot Pro+, and student plans are temporarily paused.

I would like to ask when the GitHub Student plan sign-ups are expected to resume. I am interested in applying for the student plan and would appreciate any updates or estimated timeline regarding availability.

Thank you for your time and support. I look forward to your response.

[asaddevx]

Hey @anilkarki303,

That's an important question, and I know the wait is hard.

At the moment, there is no official timeline or specific date for when GitHub will reopen sign-ups for the Copilot Student plan. GitHub announced the pause on April 20, 2026, to help manage the service for existing users, and since then, there's been no word on when it'll be lifted. The community discussions I've seen also confirm that no one has a solid estimate yet.

Since there's no new update, my best advice is to keep an eye on the official GitHub changelog and the GitHub Education Community for any future announcements. That's where you'll be the first to know when the plan becomes available again.

I hope the pause ends soon, and I'm here if you need help with anything else!

[Sanidhya069]

@anilkarki303 Here's what actually happened:

New signups for Pro, Pro+, and Student are paused. Like, fully paused. If you're trying to sign up fresh, Copilot Free is your only option now. Existing users can still move between plans but no new paid accounts are being created.

Usage limits got tighter too. Pro+ gives you 5x more headroom than Pro, so if you've been bumping into limits, that's basically GitHub telling you to upgrade. At least VS Code and the CLI will warn you before you hit the wall now.

Also, Claude Opus models are gone from Pro. Opus 4.7 is Pro+ only now. And Opus 4.5/4.6 are getting pulled from Pro+ too, which they mentioned a few days earlier.

One decent thing: if this all catches you off guard, you can cancel before May 20 and they'll refund your April bill. You'll need to ping GitHub Support directly though, it's not automatic.

GitHub's official line is "service reliability" but let's be real, they probably underpriced access to frontier models and it caught up with them. This feels less like a business decision and more like a correction.