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GitHub Education — Free Copilot Access

Beginner ~10 min

GitHub Education gives verified students and faculty free access to GitHub Copilot Pro, which unlocks powerful AI models including Anthropic's Claude.

:fontawesome-brands-youtube: Watch the video tutorial

What You'll Learn

  • How to apply for GitHub Education benefits
  • How to redeem your free Copilot Pro coupon
  • How to enable the Copilot coding agent and Claude partner agent in GitHub settings

Step 1 — Apply for GitHub Education

  1. Go to github.com/education and click Join GitHub Education

GitHub Education homepage with Join button

  1. Complete the application — you'll need an academic email address or proof of affiliation
  2. Submit and wait for approval. Benefits become available within 72 hours of verification

Step 2 — Redeem Your Copilot Pro Coupon

  1. Go to github.com/settings/education/benefits
  2. Look for the green Coupon applied bar — this confirms your application was approved

GitHub Education Benefits page showing approved coupon

  1. Click the link in the approval message: "To redeem your Copilot Pro coupon, please sign up via this link"
  2. Follow the prompts to activate Copilot Pro on your account

Step 3 — Enable the Copilot Coding Agent

  1. Go to github.com/settings/copilot/coding_agent
  2. Under Repository access, choose which repositories the coding agent can act on (you can set this to All repositories)

Copilot coding agent settings showing repository access and partner agents

Step 4 — Enable Claude as a Partner Agent

  1. On the same settings page, scroll down to the Partner Agents section
  2. Toggle Allow Claude coding agent to On
  3. Optionally toggle Allow Codex coding agent to On as well

Partner agents section with Claude coding agent enabled

Step 5 — Use Copilot Models

With Copilot Pro active, you can now access Claude and other premium models through your AI coding tool:

  1. Return to the Setup tutorial
  2. When configuring providers, select GitHub Copilot
  3. You can now choose Claude Opus 4.5 and other models available through your Copilot subscription

Tips

  • Benefits are tied to your academic email — make sure it matches the email on your GitHub account
  • The benefits page shows your coupon expiry date — reapply before it expires to avoid losing access
  • The coding agent's repository access can be restricted to specific repos if you prefer not to grant access to all repositories