Google offers year‐long free Gemini access to US college students in push for campus AI dominance

Google will give millions of US under‑graduates a year of free access to its most powerful generative‑AI tools, in a move that is set to intensify competition for mind‑share on university campuses and raise fresh questions about students’ reliance on AI.

Under the offer, students who sign up to the Google One AI Premium programme before 30 June 2025 will pay nothing for the usual $20‑a‑month subscription until the end of the spring 2026 semester. The bundle unlocks Gemini Advanced, a research assistant built on Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro model; NotebookLM Plus for automated note‑taking; integration of the Gemini assistant in Docs, Slides and Sheets; and 2 TB of cloud storage. Google pitched the deal as a way to help students “study smarter” ahead of exams.

“Exam season is upon us, and we want to help you study smarter,” wrote Josh Woodward, a vice‑president at Google Labs, in a company blogpost announcing the scheme.

A land‑grab for loyalty

The giveaway is the most aggressive attempt yet by a big tech group to seed premium AI products on campus. OpenAI has been courting universities with discounted “Team” licences for GPT‑4, while Anthropic last week widened access to its Claude assistant and launched new paid tiers aimed at “power users”.   Analysts say the education sector offers an opportunity to lock in long‑term customers at relatively low cost, echoing the way cut‑price software licences helped Microsoft Office become ubiquitous in academia during the 1990s.

Early usage data suggest uptake could be rapid: internal Google figures shared with partner universities show that more than a quarter of eligible students activated a Gemini trial within 48 hours of receiving the sign‑up email, according to people briefed on the rollout.

Mind the cognition gap

Yet the scheme lands amid mounting evidence that heavy AI use can blunt students’ own reasoning skills. A British study of 650 participants published in the journal Societies found a negative correlation between high AI usage and performance on critical‑thinking tests, with younger users scoring the lowest. Separate research led by Michael Gerlich at Switzerland’s SBS Business School linked intensive reliance on generative AI to what psychologists call “cognitive off‑loading”, where users delegate analysis to machines and accept answers at face value.

Chinese universities are already tightening rules as they try to strike a balance between innovation and academic integrity. Fudan University in Shanghai was the first in the country to mandate disclosure of AI assistance in undergraduate theses last November; at least four other institutions have since followed suit.

Teaching to the prompt

Educationalists warn that handing students cutting‑edge AI without new assessment models risks rewarding prompt‑craft over genuine inquiry. UNESCO’s recently published AI competency frameworks for students and teachers emphasise the need to cultivate scepticism, ethical reflection and domain knowledge alongside technical fluency.

Some US universities plan to require learners to submit AI conversation logs with coursework so that tutors can judge the process as well as the final answer. Others are experimenting with “AI‑foiled essays”, where students critique a Gemini‑generated argument before presenting their own.

The wider lesson

Google’s offer could narrow the digital divide for students who cannot afford commercial AI subscriptions. But it also forces institutions to confront a dilemma: how to harness the efficiency of large language models without eroding the very cognitive stamina higher education is meant to cultivate.

If universities integrate AI deliberately, rewarding source‑checking, reflection and synthesis, Gemini may yet become a catalyst for deeper learning. If not, the risk is that a free tool today will come at the cost of diminished critical‑thinking tomorrow.

More information on the offer here: https://blog.google/products/gemini/google-one-ai-premium-students-free/