ROC Nijmegen Student – Can’t Verify for Student Plan (.edu-only limitation)
I’m currently a student at ROC Nijmegen (a recognized Dutch vocational school). My student email is: [email protected]
When I try to verify my account for the Cursor Student Plan, I’m blocked by the system — it only accepts .edu addresses, even though other Dutch schools like Curio (@curio.edu.nl) are allowed.
I’ve contacted support, but I get an automatic response from the AI assistant (Sam) saying:
“In order to support your Student discount request you must write in from the student email you are trying to verify. This email must be a ‘.edu’ address.”
This creates an unfair situation where legitimate Dutch students are excluded just because their email domain ends with .nl instead of .edu.
Steps to Reproduce
Try to verify with a valid Dutch MBO student email (e.g. @student.roc-nijmegen.nl)
AI support assistant blocks you because it’s not .edu
No way to continue verification, no human support contact available
Expected Behavior
Dutch students at recognized institutions (like ROC Nijmegen) should be able to verify their status — even if their email domain doesn’t end in .edu.
There should be a manual verification option or support for more international student domains like .edu.nl.
Operating System
Windows 10/11
Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)
This currently blocks me from accessing the student version of Cursor, even though I am actively studying programming and would greatly benefit from access. I know other Dutch students using Curio emails have access, so this seems inconsistent.
Please help fix this, or allow .roc-nijmegen.nl (and similar .edu.nl) domains.
Cursor doesn’t care, unfortunately, there are a lot of threads on here about this same issue, and cursor hasn’t replied to one of them. The minimum they could do is just tell the truth on their website instead of misleading us all.
Ditto. The “.edu” domain is primarily used in US institutions.
Here in Japan (which is listed as one of the countries Cursor for Students is available for on their website) the official higher education domain is “.ac.jp”, however the verification always outputs an error asking for “.edu”.
I’ve emailed support via [email protected], but I’m not sure it’ll go through since their AI support bot already replied “Please submit a new request using your .edu email”…
Same here. Although the Cursor for Students page lists a number of currently supported countries – one of which is Japan, where I’m based – the official “.ac.jp” emails (basically: “academic, Japan”) provided by most universities in the country are rejected.
SheerID itself is a third party in the literal sense, no? As in, Cursor is not affiliated with them, right?
There are other trustworthy services used by worldwide institutions that offer licences or other services to students, see e.g., MATLAB, IEEE. These use external services like Shibboleth/InCommon that leverage universities’ existing SSO infrastructure.
(of course, this doesn’t solve the problem for institutions that don’t provide emails to their students)
Indeed, I posted regarding the same issue and even though I managed to get verified my account was immediately downgraded for no obvious reason. Sent emails about it - nada. Opened a topic here which was hidden by moderator… Insane lack of professionalism in support field and of course I will make sure to mention this all the time when I talk with my peers regarding cursor.
I’m also running into issues with the student discount process—specifically around the email domain requirement. At the moment, the system appears to require a “.edu” email address for verification, but “.edu” domains are primarily used in North America (mainly the United States). Most universities across Europe, the UK, and many other countries issue academic emails using different domain formats like “.ac.uk” or national equivalents.
However, your FAQ for “Which universities are eligible?”includes 30+ eligible countries, including the United Kingdom, Croatia, Germany, and others, which suggests broader support is intended.
Currently, the only verification method seems to be SheerID, which isn’t always reliable for non-U.S. institutions—even when the university is listed. Many UK and European students are more familiar with services like UNiDAYS or Student Beans, which are well-integrated into higher education across these regions.
Feature Suggestion:
Please consider expanding the verification process to include:
A manual review option for cases where automatic verification fails
Updated logic that accepts domain formats beyond .edu, especially when eligibility is clearly outlined in your policy
Cursor is a great tool, especially for students working on coding-heavy research or technical coursework. Improving access to the student plan for international users would make a big difference.
I am from Costa Rica and am also interested in the Student program. The URLs here are .ac.cr. I’m interested in hearing from the Cursor team about how we can verify international student email addresses, similar to how Intelij and other platforms do.
I’m an engineering student from India, and I’ve been following Cursor with great interest. I’m really impressed by the way you’re integrating AI into the developer workflow — it’s a game changer for students like me who are building and learning at the same time.
I noticed that the student discount or free student tier currently isn’t available for Indian students. I’d like to kindly request you to consider extending this offer to us as well. India has a huge base of engineering students who actively contribute to AI learning, open-source communities, and product feedback — we would be thrilled to use Cursor, and in turn, provide valuable usage data and feedback that could help your platform grow.
For example, Gemini Pro is currently free for Indian students, which shows how companies are recognizing the value of engaging with India’s student developer ecosystem.
I’m a student at PAR University College in Croatia. When I try to claim the student discount through SheerID, the flow stops at “We’re having trouble validating your ID.” My university is listed, but our addresses look like [email protected], not [email protected].
Key background:
All Croatian universities belong to the national academic identity federation AAI@EduHr, which is part of eduGAIN.
Each institution keeps its own .hr domain (e.g. @fer.hr, @student.pravo.hr).
Croatia is already on SheerID’s supported-countries list, so the block is purely the “.edu” suffix check.
Friendly suggestions
Whitelist AAI@EduHr domains (any *.hr domain registered in the federation).
Offer a manual document-upload fallback when the e-mail rule fails.
Use the eduGAIN metadata feed—it already enumerates every Croatian higher-ed Identity Provider, so new schools are covered automatically.
This small tweak would unlock the discount for roughly 150 000 Croatian students and send a strong message that Cursor supports learners worldwide.
Cursor Team
Feature Suggestion: