Co-pilot status mismatch

[vepuna]

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Bug

Copilot Feature Area

Copilot in GitHub

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I’ve been approved for GitHub Faculty benefits, but Copilot is still showing my account as a Student. Because of that, I can’t access the faculty Copilot features in VS Code.

Has anyone experienced this before? How can I fix it or refresh my account status so Copilot updates correctly?

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[jannoguer]

Yeah, this is a common sync delay between the Global Campus approval and the Copilot service actually catching up.

The first thing to try is the "turn it off and back on again" approach for your IDE. In VS Code, sign out of your GitHub account completely, restart the editor, and then sign back in. That usually forces a fresh token exchange that picks up your new Faculty status.

If that doesn't work right away, check your GitHub Billing settings under "Subscriptions." If it says "GitHub Copilot - Faculty" there, you're all set on the backend and it’s just a matter of waiting—sometimes it takes 24–48 hours for the permissions to propagate across all the different API endpoints.

Hope that helps! If it solves the problem, feel free to mark this as the answer. It helps other people with the same issue find the fix faster.

jannoguer

[vepuna]

I used to have a GitHub Pro student plan, but after they confirmed that I was a teacher, they revoked it and I was left with GitHub Free.

[jannoguer]

Since it says GitHub Free, VS Code is doing exactly what it's supposed to do (locking you out), no matter how many times you clear your cache.

It looks like when your teacher status was approved, GitHub's automated system successfully nuked your old Student Pro access, but completely dropped the ball on granting you the new Faculty Copilot access. Having two overlapping coupons applied probably confused the backend even more. Since it's been 8 days, you're definitely past the normal "wait it out" phase.

Here are the two things I'd try next:

1. Click that specific manual link
In your first screenshot, there's a line that says: "To redeem Copilot, please sign up via this link." Try clicking that exact link. Sometimes the Faculty benefits don't auto-apply and you have to essentially "checkout" with a Copilot subscription for $0.00 to force it onto your billing page.

2. Open a support ticket
If that link just throws an error or asks for a credit card, you're officially stuck in an entitlement bug. You'll need to reach out to GitHub Education Support to get a human to untangle it.

You can just tell them:

"My Student status was revoked when my Faculty status was approved on March 16. However, my account was bumped down to GitHub Free and the Copilot Faculty entitlement was never added to my Subscriptions. I also seem to have two overlapping coupons now. Can someone manually sync my billing entitlements so I can access Copilot?"

Once a real person looks at it, they can usually push a button on their end to fix your billing state pretty quickly. Let me know how it goes!

jannoguer

[vepuna]

I clicked the link to activate Copilot, but it redirected me to a regular page that says I have a student version of Copilot.
I submitted a support ticket; I hope they can help me.

[jannoguer]

Ok, sorry to hear that nothing worked, waiting to see what they respond on the ticket.

jannoguer

[jannoguer]

If you find this helpful, could you close the discussion by marking this as the answer? Thanks!

jannoguer

[denicprotopopov]

I have exactly the same problem. I've submitted the helpdesk ticket (about a week ago), but haven't heard back

[vepuna]

I was waiting at first, but I've now opened a ticket as well. I read through it and realized that, unfortunately, tech support isn't helping at all.

[firmanserdana]

any news on this?

[denicprotopopov]

i think the support completely misunderstood the problem i described in my ticket... lol