OpenAI and Anthropic are fighting over college students with free AI

Two leading AI labs, OpenAI and Anthropic, just announced major initiatives in higher education. It’s the constant one-upping we’ve all become familiar with: this week, Anthropic dropped their announcement at 8 AM Wednesday, while OpenAI followed with nearly identical news at 8 AM Thursday.

For Anthropic, this week’s announcement was its first major academic push. It launched Claude for Education, a university-focused version of its chatbot. The company also announced partnerships with Northeastern University, London School of Economics (LSE), and Champlain College, along with with Internet2, which builds university tech infrastructure, and Instructure (maker of Canvas) to increase “equitable access to tools that support universities as they integrate AI.”

At the center of Anthropic’s education-focused offering is “Learning mode,” a new feature that changes how Claude interacts with students. Instead of just providing answers, the press release says Learning mode will use Socratic questioning to guide students through problems, asking “How would you approach this?” or “What evidence supports your conclusion?” — with the goal of helping students ”develop critical thinking skills” rather than just doing their homework for them.

“As social scientists, we are in a unique position to understand and shape how AI can positively transform education and society,” President and Vice-Chancellor of LSE Larry Kramer said in Anthropic’s press release.

While Anthropic is just now entering higher education, OpenAI has been active in this space for nearly a year. The startup launched ChatGPT Edu in May 2024 — a university-focused version of its chatbot that came with multiple college partnerships. Last month, the company formed the NextGenAI Consortium, committing $50 million to accelerate AI research across 15 colleges. In February, OpenAI also partnered with California State University to bring ChatGPT Edu to all CSU campuses. Then, this Thursday, OpenAI announced that ChatGPT Plus (which costs $20 a month) will be free for all U.S. and Canadian college students through May.

The OpenAI initiative highlights that ChatGPT is “here to help you through finals,” offering Plus tier benefits like large file uploads, Deep Research, and advanced voice features.

”Today’s college students face enormous pressure to learn faster, tackle harder problems, and enter a workforce increasingly shaped by AI. Supporting their AI literacy means more than demonstrating how these tools work,” VP of Education at OpenAI Leah Belsky said in the company’s press release.

Both labs releasing education initiatives simultaneously reveals the high value of college students. The race to embed AI tools in academia is a competition to shape how the next generation works with AI — and crucially, to become their default AI tool.