Streaming Services And VPN: Where’s My Student Discount?

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Being a student is expensive, and anyone familiar with dorm life will tell you that anything you can do to live a little cheaper is worth the extra effort. Trying to study on a budget is important, what with textbooks costing the arm and leg that they do these days, and let’s not even get into the exorbitant price of tuition. That’s why it’s important when you’re attending college or university that you try and save money wherever you can, including on the monthly services you pay for that cover thing like streaming and Internet privacy.

So, which streaming services and VPNs offer the best student discounts in the business? Read on in our guide to find out!

What Is A Student Discount And How Does It Work?

To start, it helps to know exactly what a student discount is, and how you can use it to your advantage the next time you sign up for a service online.

Generally, student discounts work something like this: you go to a special signup page made specifically for students, register using an email address that ends in “.edu” (and is recognized as an accredited university), then you get to enjoy massive discounts only available to college students!

But which VPN providers and streaming services actually offer a student discount, and where are you out of luck in this department?

Streaming Services With A Student Discount

Spotify/Hulu – The Best Student Discount

 

Hulu/Spotify joint logo
 
 
 

Earlier this year, the music streaming service Spotify teamed up with TV streaming service Hulu to offer one of the best deals of our era: two for the price of (less than) one.

Even though Spotify technically has its own plan designed for students that grants you access for $4.99 a month, the company also offers a combo pack that comes with unlimited access to Hulu’s commercial plan for $4.99, too. Previously, signing up for both of these services individually would set you back $18.99 per month.

Spotify technically does have an ad-supported free version that students can use if you really want to, but Hulu no longer offers a free option. The bonus of the combo subscription means that for just five bucks a month, you get access to unlimited music and TV/movies, which easily makes it the best student discount for those who study hard but also like to take a break once in awhile to catch up on their stories.

 

Amazon Prime Video – Has A Student Discount

 

Prime Video logo

 

 

Of all the great deals on this list, Amazon’s offering is undoubtedly one of the best when you add up all the savings over the course of a year.

Normally, an Amazon Prime subscription would set you back $99 annually if you buy the whole year up front, or $12.99 per month if you want to get billed every 30 days ($155.88 annually). With a student discount, you can cut that price in half to just $6.49 per month or $59 per year.

Not only will you get major savings on the monthly plan, but those who sign up for Amazon Student through the company’s page will also get a whopping six month free trial to see if you even like the product in the first place. This means that if you went with the monthly plan after the six month trial ended, you would only pay $38.94 for an entire year of service!

When you consider that you also get all the benefits that come with an Amazon Prime subscription like free shipping and access to the Prime Now same-day delivery service, it’s clear that Amazon offers one of the best deals for college students.

 

HBONow – No Student Discount

 

HBO Now logo
 
 
 
 

Although HBO now used to offer a student discount which brought the monthly subscription price of the service down to $9.99 per month (from the standard $14.99/month), the company has stated that it will no longer allow new students to sign up for discounts on the service using their .edu emails. HBO hasn’t elaborated on why they ceased offering the program, but if you already have the discount applied to your account, you can keep that price as long as you continue to pay the bill on time and don’t let the subscription lapse.

 

Apple Music – Has A Student Discount

 

Apple Music logo
 
 
 

Apple Music offers a 50% student discount for anyone who signs up through their school-issued email address, bringing the monthly cost of $9.99 per month down to just $4.99.

And although this is by no means an expensive option, considering that the new Spotify/Hulu combo deal is the same price and offers the benefit of getting a whole library of TV/movies to watch each month, we’d recommend going that route instead. Plus unlike Apple Music, which is locked to the Apple ecosystem of devices, Spotify and Hulu stream to just about any device you can think of.

 

Netflix – No Student Discount

Netflix logo

Netflix is another streaming service that doesn’t care to participate in the whole “students stream cheap” thing and doesn’t offer any sort of discount for those with a .edu email address. Right now the cheapest plan the company offers is $7.99 a month, which gives you streaming access on one device but doesn’t even offer the option to stream in HD. In our opinion, this essentially makes that plan useless, because who really wants to watch gorgeously shot documentaries like Planet Earth in 480p?

If you want HD access you’ll have to go one more tier up to the $10.99 a month plan, and the company also offers another bump to the UHD/4K plan for $13.99 a month if you happen to have a TV that features that resolution.

VPNs With A Student Discount

Now that you’re signed up for your favorite streaming services with your student discount, it’s time to add a VPN into the mix. It was fairly difficult to find a good number of VPNs that offer a student discount, and to be honest the ones we did find weren’t anywhere near as impressive as the kind of money you would save on something like the Spotify/Hulu combo. Then again, there’s barely any services out there that can match that sort of value so I guess the VPNs can be forgiven a bit on this front.

Regardless, here’s a list of VPN student discounts we found along with how much you can expect to save on each service.

Hotspot Shield

According to a relatively old blog post that surfaced back in 2013, supposedly both students and teachers can get a full year of free access to the Hotspot Shield VPN service as long as they sign up for an account using their .edu email address.

We were unable to verify the veracity of these claims or whether or not the program is still active (since we don’t have a .edu address to sign up with), but there hasn’t been any news of the plan ends. So the only way to find out is to head on over to Hotspot Shield’s subscription page and see for yourself!

SlickVPN

SlickVPN is another VPN company that was suspiciously vague as to what the actual student discounts are because the only way to actually see how much you save is to go through the checkout process and register with a .edu address along the way.

That being said, the company does still offer some kind of discount, so head on over to the signup page to see how much you can save today!

HideMyAss!

HMA! offers a whopping discount of 10% off for students, which may not sound like a lot, but that’s probably because it isn’t. When applied to the annual plan you’re only saving about $0.70 cents a month, which is enough for a few extra packets of ramen, but nothing really worth writing home about if we’re being blunt.

Kaspersky Secure Connection

Kaspersky is another service that offers a student discount on its VPN services, but like HMA! the 10% discount is pretty underwhelming when you consider it’ll only save you $2.90 over the course of an entire year.

Conclusion

When setting out to research this article, I assumed there would be a lot more discounts available to students on VPN plans than there actually were. Given how keen the industry is to constantly refresh their discounts, it was surprising to see that so few actually recognized the struggle that students go through when it comes to their monthly bills. The discounts we did find were minimal at best.

That said, streaming services like Spotify and Hulu definitely seem to understand that students need to keep their budgets as tight as possible, and the Spotify/Hulu Student combo plan is definitely one of the best around when it comes to streaming music and TV shows online.

Customer Reviews for NordVPN

IR Irina

Streaming Services And VPN: Where’s My Student Discount?
Verified
Connection issues with MLB.TV
So I had some connection issues on my iOS device (iPad) with MLB.TV streaming, and representative named Garfield SOLVED my unique problem that I had spent hours researching and tackling with no luck before today! Garfield was extremely patient, personable, and very knowledgeable. Through multiple approaches and problem-solving steps, he created a solutuon that worked. Way to go, and definitely a returning NordVPN customer here. Thank you, Garfield.
Date of Experience:
May, 2 2023
CH Christina

Streaming Services And VPN: Where’s My Student Discount?
Verified
Prompt customer service
My subscription automatically renewed and a payment was taken, which I didn’t want as I haven’t been using the service. I contacted the company and received a prompt and efficient response where my subscription was reversed and the payment was returned. If only every company was so easy to contact and communicate with!
Date of Experience:
May, 6 2023
DC DC

Streaming Services And VPN: Where’s My Student Discount?
Verified
Great customer service
Had some problems with some qbitorrent files and could never find out myself. Looked online for hours which was honestly a waste of time, as I could of just went to NordVPN's customer service chatbox. This was surprising as I was stuck on this all night long but was stupid not to ask customer service but even then, they were able to quickly get me to an agent that could handle my issues. Khai was my agent and he was so nice and like so patient with me because this was all new to me. I did not know for the setup for qbitorrent and nordvpn that the input values for the service credentials isnt your username and password but rather a special key on your own personal dashboard. Khai was even nice and patient enough to explain some terminology for me which was super nice of him. Honestly although vpns can sound confusing, nordvpn knows this and hired/trained some pretty smart customer service members so if you have any issue or problems, just go to the chatbox. Super nice people and chill to talk to and very fast.
Date of Experience:
May, 4 2023