Does LinkedIn premium have student discount?

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 810 million members worldwide as of October 2022. It allows members to create professional profiles, connect with other professionals, find jobs, network, and more. LinkedIn also offers several paid subscription plans under LinkedIn Premium to unlock additional features. But does LinkedIn offer discounted premium plans for students?

What is LinkedIn Premium?

LinkedIn Premium is LinkedIn’s subscription service that provides members access to premium features not available with the free basic account. There are three types of LinkedIn Premium plans:

• Premium Career – Focused on job seeking and professional branding
• Premium Business – For sales and business development
• Premium Hiring – For recruiters and hiring managers

Some of the key benefits of LinkedIn Premium include:

• Seeing who viewed your profile
• Message prioritization to increase response rate
• Ability to browse member profiles anonymously
• Access to unlimited advanced filters for searching profiles
• Premium profile branding and visibility
• Expanded network with up to 15 InMail messages per month
• Unlimited profile highlight views
• Premium insights and analytics

Premium plans range in price from $29.99 to $99.99 per month depending on the plan type. LinkedIn does not publicly disclose the number of Premium subscribers, but some estimates put it between 10-20 million as of 2022.

Does LinkedIn offer student discounts?

Unfortunately, LinkedIn does not currently offer student discounted pricing on any of their Premium subscription plans. Their Premium plans are full price whether you are a student or not.

LinkedIn used to have a student pricing plan called LinkedIn Students that offered discounts, but this was discontinued in 2014. The LinkedIn Students plan offered access to many Premium features like profile highlighting and InMail messages for just $14.99 per month.

However, LinkedIn found the student plan was not generating enough revenue and also being abused by some non-student users claiming the discount. As a result, LinkedIn decided to discontinue their dedicated student offering.

Why doesn’t LinkedIn offer student discounts?

There are a few potential reasons why LinkedIn does not offer discounted Premium plans for students:

• Premium accounts are LinkedIn’s main revenue source – Offering discounts could significantly impact overall revenue
• Difficulty verifying student status – Hard for LinkedIn to reliably confirm someone is actively a student
• Possibility of abuse – Non-students could take advantage of a student discount
• Students are not the target demographic – Working professionals are more likely to pay and benefit from Premium
• LinkedIn Students plan failed – Poor revenue and abuse of previous student plan
• Premium not considered essential for students – Students can still use LinkedIn effectively without Premium

As a publicly traded company, LinkedIn has an obligation to shareholders to maintain revenues and growth. Offering discounted plans to students would undermine their main revenue streams from Premium subscriptions.

Verifying student status can also pose challenges. While some universities integrate with LinkedIn, there is no universal student verification system. Unscrupulous users could take advantage of a student discount even if no longer enrolled.

The main benefits of Premium like seeing profile viewers, InMail messages, and premium branding tend to be more beneficial for seasoned professionals rather than students just starting their careers. As their target demographic, working professionals have more ability and need to pay full price for a Premium subscription.

Are there any ways for students to save on LinkedIn Premium?

While LinkedIn no longer offers student discounts, there are some ways students could potentially save on accessing Premium features:

• Free trials – Take advantage of LinkedIn’s one month Premium free trials which provide temporary access to all features
• Microsoft Office 365 bundle – Office 365 University subscriptions include a one year Premium license for students
• Microsoft Imagine – Students at certain universities can get Office 365 and LinkedIn Premium free through Microsoft Imagine (formerly DreamSpark)
• Scholarships – Apply for scholarships like the LinkedIn Scholarship program which can provide Premium access
• Group deals – Join student groups on LinkedIn that negotiate bulk deals to share a reduced number of Premium accounts

While not traditional discounted pricing, these options provide some avenues for students to access Premium features for free or at a lower cost.

Conclusion

In summary, LinkedIn unfortunately does not offer reduced price or student discounted Premium subscription plans anymore. They discontinued their dedicated student Premium offering in 2014 due to revenue and abuse challenges.

Given that Premium accounts are their primary revenue source and students are not their core target demographic, LinkedIn seems unlikely to resume student discounts in the future. However, students can still benefit from Premium through free trials, bundled Office 365 plans, scholarships, or group deals.

For any students wanting access to LinkedIn Premium’s useful professional branding and networking features, these options are worth exploring to see if you can get access at little or no cost for at least a short time as a student.