OpenAI has sold more than 700,000 ChatGPT licenses to about 35 public universities for use by students, faculty and staff, according to purchase orders. By contrast, Microsoft Corp (MSFT), which typically bundles Copilot Assistant with existing software, has been slower to adopt its AI tools in these schools, with faculty often using them at a higher rate than students.
The popularity of ChatGPT on U.S. campuses has been rapid. Students and faculty used it more than 14 million times in September, according to data from 20 schools that have contracts with OpenAI. On average, each user called ChatGPT 176 times that month, seeking help with tasks such as writing, research, and data analysis.
Private schools are not subject to public records laws, so their AI license purchases are not easily known, meaning the actual number of university contracts is likely much higher. An OpenAI spokesperson said the company has sold "well over a million" licenses to universities globally. A Microsoft spokesperson said that many universities are using the company’s range of AI products.
The tech industry has long marketed low-priced software and hardware to students in hopes of turning them into lifelong customers. Apple (AAPL.US) offers education discounts and launches back-to-school events every year to further attract buyers. Google's (GOOGL.US) Chromebook laptops and free apps have also helped it win over campus users.
Today, OpenAI is playing a similar trick in the field of artificial intelligence. Microsoft's Copilot and Google's increasingly popular Gemini may be catching up. But for now, OpenAI is seizing the lead thanks to ChatGPT's popularity and deep discounts, mirroring the traction it has built among office workers and consumers.
Schools willing to buy access to ChatGPT in bulk would pay a few dollars per user per month, according to the contract reviewed. This is a huge savings compared to the $20 per month that OpenAI typically charges a small number of educational users. For business users, ChatGPT costs up to $60 per month.
ChatGPT usage surges on college campuses
Arizona State University, one of the nation's largest schools by enrollment, agreed in September to purchase ChatGPT access for all students, faculty and staff. As of late November, nearly 10,000 students and 6,400 employees at the school had used the new licenses, according to a spokesperson.
Several other major universities have followed suit. In the fall of 2024, the California State University system decided to make AI tools available to all of its roughly 500,000 students and faculty, ensuring that even those who cannot afford to pay for them themselves have access. Chief Information Officer Ed Clark said management evaluated several tools and found ChatGPT to be the cheapest and most familiar to students. The system, which includes campuses such as San Diego State University, agreed to pay OpenAI $15 million per year.
Clark revealed that initially management was interested in Microsoft's Copilot because it would work with applications such as Word that the school was already using. But Microsoft’s offer was significantly higher than what they ultimately paid OpenAI—$30 per user per month for Copilot, while ChatGPT was actually only $2.50. Many universities using Copilot, such as the University of Georgia and the University of Washington, pay about $30 per user per month, according to documents reviewed.
campus offensive
Less than two years ago, many university administrators were skeptical of artificial intelligence. And now, universities are among AI’s largest institutional customers. How did they learn to stop worrying and fall in love with ChatGPT?
Educators are among the first to grapple with the impact of generative AI, as the technology is clearly a great aid for college students. ChatGPT quickly became ubiquitous on campus, with students using it for basic research, writing — and, of course, cheating. Fearing widespread plagiarism, some schools have banned or restricted ChatGPT, leading students to start using it secretly.
But many school administrators have reached a cautious acceptance and are now looking to set ground rules for how teachers and students can use AI. “We don’t see an ‘opt-out’ option in the future,” said Anne Jones, vice provost for undergraduate education at Arizona State University. “Employers expect and need a workforce that understands how to operate these tools.”
Meanwhile, the tech industry is making a concerted effort to convince schools of the benefits of AI. OpenAI has hired salespeople focused on education and poached a top executive from Coursera, an online learning platform that often works with universities. “College students in particular are one of our heaviest user groups,” said Leah Belsky, a former Coursera employee who is now vice president of education at OpenAI.
Before the final exam in the spring of 2025, OpenAI opened ChatGPT to students for free and launched a large-scale advertising campaign. It also hired “student ambassadors” to promote the tool across the California State University system. “More and more of the education ecosystem is realizing that AI is here to stay,” Belsky said. Her pitch to universities is that formal adoption of AI allows it to be used in ways that help learning, job readiness and teaching; in contrast, treating AI as just an “answer machine” can impede learning.
Meanwhile, Microsoft funded research on the current state of AI use in education. A basic version of its AI chat assistant is already free for schools using the company's software, and the company recently announced a price cut for academic institutions — dropping the price of the premium version from about $30 to $18 per month. "For decades, Microsoft has partnered with universities to support their evolving teaching, research and operational needs with trusted technology and innovation," a Microsoft spokesperson said.
Federal and state policymakers are also beginning to offer incentives to schools that formally adopt AI programs. Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced new federal higher education funding priorities that include a $50 million pool to support programs that expand access to AI and leverage the technology to “enhance teaching, learning, and student success.”
Even as they embrace AI, some schools remain wary and are scrambling to study its potential impact on education. In March, Netflix Chairman Reed Hastings donated $50 million to Bowdoin College to conduct in-depth research into the impact of these tools on teaching and learning.
Eric Jon, a professor of digital and computational studies at Bowdoin College who led the effort, said the technology's ability to help students learn has yet to be proven. AI may reduce the tediousness of administrative tasks such as managing schedules and developing syllabuses, but it appears to be less effective when it comes to actual teaching, he said. Jon worries that universities are rushing to sign up to OpenAI less because they have figured out how AI can improve education than because they are worried about being left behind.
Many schools are slowly rolling out these tools while testing their effectiveness. When the University of Nebraska at Omaha began purchasing ChatGPT licenses in the spring of 2025, it surveyed hundreds of employees. Results showed that 92% of teachers, librarians and students surveyed said they would recommend the tool to others on campus, with the majority saying it saves them between 1 and 5 hours per week. Writing and brainstorming were the most common uses, although about a quarter of respondents used it for lesson plan writing and student tutoring. As of September, the school had about 800 active users.
Popularity varies greatly. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, approximately 200 faculty and staff are active on the school’s ChatGPT license account. Among them, a small number of "power users" contribute most of the usage. One policy researcher called the tool 742 times in September — about 34 times a day, assuming a standard work week. At the same time, most users invoke the tool less than 10 times throughout the month. (The school also pays for about 600 Microsoft Copilot licenses.)
Mairead Martin, the school's chief information officer, said the emergence of "early power users" is not uncommon. But she also pointed to the concerns of many faculty and staff as one of the reasons the school is taking a cautious approach. The school has given up steep discounts from massive licensing deals in an effort to demonstrate to employees that it is taking legacy technology concerns, including plagiarism and data security, seriously.
OpenAI reaches ChatGPT cooperation agreement with many well-known universities
How long OpenAI can maintain its leading position in the campus field depends in part on the response of Google and Microsoft. To retain its share of the education market, Google is offering a one-year free trial of Gemini AI Assistant Pro to all college students. It also offers a completely free basic version of its AI assistant, which Miami-Dade County Public Schools, one of the nation's largest school districts, has rolled out to 100,000 students. (The district also spent $150,000 to purchase 400 Google Pro AI licenses, primarily for faculty, according to the filing.) Google has also touted the use of its AI technology at colleges and universities such as Boise State University.
Microsoft's software is so ubiquitous in the enterprise that the company has convinced many to adopt Copilot and its other AI tools embedded in office apps like Word, Excel and Teams. However, in the field of education, Microsoft's advantage is weaker due to factors such as competition from Google. Many of the schools surveyed have only purchased a limited number of Copilot licenses (primarily for faculty and staff use) and have yet to see widespread adoption among students.
Texas State University is a large Microsoft customer, paying about $1 million a year. All teachers and students at the school already have access to the basic version of Microsoft Copilot through a bundled service. Adoption was fair—one document showed that in a month around November, about 69,000 unique devices connected to Copilot on campus Wi-Fi.
But even without a formal contract, ChatGPT was used twice as much as Copilot, documents show. Google Gemini is also slightly more popular than Copilot. Matt Hall, the school’s chief information officer, said in an interview that the school is currently negotiating with Google to purchase more of its advanced AI tools.
OpenAI expressed confidence that it has won over college students. “A lot of universities, even though they already have Gemini, Microsoft and other AI tools, are still bringing us in because at the end of the day, the technology that students like the most is ChatGPT,” said OpenAI’s Belsky.