Cursor Student Discount 2026: Is Cursor Still Free for Students?

No, not as a discount. Cursor discontinued new sign-ups for its legacy student discount on June 25, 2026, according to its own help page, checked October 10, 2026. The Hobby plan is still free with no credit card, undergraduates can claim campus credits starting this fall, and Pro lists at $20 a month with no separate student price.

What a student can get right now

Start with the row that matches you. The price column is the one to check before you sign up, because the student routes do not publish dollar amounts.

Most students should start on Hobby today. Move to a paid plan only after a real week of work runs into the free limits, and treat the campus credits as a bonus rather than a budget line.

What changed when the discount closed

Cursor gives two reasons for the change. The program had become a target for fraud, and it kept Cursor from reaching students in more countries. The routes that replace it are campus events and a request form, both covered below. Nothing on Cursor's help page suggests the old sign-up path will return.

If you already redeemed the discount, your rate holds until the plan expires. After the student discount year, Pro continues at the regular monthly rate unless you cancel. That renewal date is the number to watch.

Some guides still describe the old year-long offer without mentioning the closure. Trust Cursor's dated help page over any guide that gives no date.

Undergraduates: campus credits, with no amount yet

Cursor says undergraduates can claim credits and discounts at on-campus and online events, and its students page says those events start "this fall." Neither page publishes a credit amount, a list of events, or a date for each one. There is no number to plan around yet, so do not hold off on a project waiting for one.

The practical step is to join Cursor's campus newsletter. Cursor says the list gets early access to events, exclusive discounts and beginner guides. If your term starts before the first event near you, Hobby covers the gap, and you do not need to pay for Pro to begin.

Graduate students, researchers and educators: the request form

Master's students, PhD candidates, academic researchers and educators can fill out Cursor's credit-request form to support their work. The help page gives no approval criteria, credit amount or response time. Treat the form as a chance, not a plan. Until a credit arrives, Hobby keeps you coding, and paying month to month for Pro is the fallback if you cannot wait.

Hobby is free, with limits

Hobby needs no credit card. Cursor's pricing page lists limited Agent requests and access to Composer, and its pricing help article adds Agent, Chat and Tab completions on the Auto model. Cursor does not publish a request count for Hobby on any page we read, so the limit only shows up in use. Our Cursor review covers the product itself, separate from the plan question.

That is enough for a class project and a few evenings of edits. Heavier work, such as a thesis, a hackathon or a summer internship, is likely to reach the cap, and the choice then is Pro, on-demand usage, or a different free tool. Cursor's Start plan is sold only in India and priced in rupees, so it does not help a student anywhere else.

What Pro costs a student, with the arithmetic

Cursor lists Pro at $20 a month, Pro+ at $60 a month and Ultra at $200 a month. It lists no separate student price, so the sums below use those list numbers. One four-month term on Pro is $80. A full year billed monthly is $240. The same term on Pro+ comes to $240, and on Ultra it comes to $800. Cursor's pricing page recommends Pro+ for daily agent users and Ultra for agent power users, so the step up depends on how many hours a week you run agents.

Pro includes two monthly usage pools, one for Cursor's own models and one for third-party models. Both reset with the billing cycle, and unused usage does not roll over. Turning on on-demand usage bills extra requests in arrears at the same API rates, so the list price is the floor of the invoice, not the total. Our Cursor pricing breakdown shows how the pools and on-demand charges add up.

You can move from monthly to yearly billing in the dashboard. Cursor's help page says there is no way to switch back to monthly in the middle of a plan. The yearly price is not on the pages we read, so this page does not put a figure on it.

The traps that cost students money

The biggest trap is a discounted code sold by someone else. Cursor says it sells subscriptions only through cursor.com, and that subscriptions bought from any other source are unauthorized and may be suspended or terminated.

The second trap is the renewal date for anyone still on the old discount. The rate holds until the plan expires, then the regular monthly rate applies. Put that date in your calendar and decide before it arrives.

The third trap is on-demand usage. A student who runs long agent sessions can see extra charges even on Pro. Keep on-demand off until you have seen one full cycle of your own usage on the Spending dashboard.

What to do this week

1. Install Cursor from the download page and use Hobby for the coding you already do. A week of real work shows whether the free limits matter for your course or project.
2. If you are an undergraduate, join the campus newsletter so you hear about the fall events first.
3. If you are a master's student, PhD candidate, researcher or educator, fill out the credit-request form and keep working on Hobby until you hear back.
4. If you already hold the discount, check when your plan renews and decide before then whether Pro is still worth the monthly rate.

Free AI coding tools if Cursor's free tier is too small

Toolradar data: our October 2026 AI coding ranking evaluated 156 tools. Eight of its ten top picks have a free plan, and Cursor's is Hobby. Claude Code and Kluster AI are the two top picks without one, which matters if you plan to switch tools mid-term. The Claude Code review and the Claude Code against Cursor comparison cover that tool in more depth. For each tool, the Cursor record and the Claude Code record on Toolradar are the next stop.

Gemini CLI, listed as open source, and Codium AI, with a Developer plan, are also free in that table. Check each vendor's page before you build a workflow around one, and start with our AI coding assistants ranking for the full field. Cursor against GitHub Copilot covers the choice between an editor and a plugin, which changes what a free tier actually buys you.

Our GitHub Copilot pricing page and its review cover GitHub's student route. Check GitHub's own plan page before you rely on that route. For GitHub's student route, the claim steps and sign-up status are in How to Get GitHub Copilot for Free in 2026. If you want to see what the paid tiers cost on the tool you are most likely to switch to, the Claude Code pricing explainer covers its plans and prices.

FAQ

Does Cursor still have a student discount in 2026?

No. Cursor's help page says it discontinued new sign-ups for the legacy student discount on June 25, 2026. Students who redeemed it before then keep their rate until the plan expires, and then the regular monthly rate applies unless they cancel.

Is Cursor free for students?

Partly. The Hobby plan is free with no credit card and includes limited Agent requests and Composer access. Undergraduates can claim campus credits at events, and master's students, PhD candidates, researchers and educators can request credits through a form. Cursor publishes no credit amount for either route.

How much is Cursor Pro for a student?

Cursor lists Pro at its list price and publishes no separate student price. A four-month term costs $80, and a full year at the monthly rate costs $240. Pro+ is $60 a month and Ultra is $200 a month.

Can graduate students get Cursor for free?

Possibly. Cursor says master's students, PhD candidates, academic researchers and educators can request credits through its form, but it gives no approval criteria, amount or timeline. Plan on Hobby, or a paid month, until a credit arrives.

Does the student discount still apply to existing subscribers?

Yes, if you redeemed it before June 25, 2026. You keep your current rate until the plan expires, then pay the regular monthly rate unless you cancel.

Are student Cursor codes sold by third parties legitimate?

No. Cursor sells subscriptions only through cursor.com and calls any other source unauthorized, which can lead to suspension. Do not pay a third party for a Cursor student code.

How we checked these facts

Louis Corneloup, founder of Dupple and Toolradar, wrote this page. We read Cursor's student discount help page, its students page, its pricing page, its pricing help article and its usage doc on October 10, 2026. The Toolradar figures come from our AI coding ranking, updated October 2026.

Cursor changes its terms, so check the help page before you buy. The prices here are list prices, before taxes, which Cursor says are extra.

Cite this: Devshot, "Cursor Student Discount 2026: Is It Still Available?", October 2026.

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