Free Cloud Credits for Students
"Free cloud credits" is a phrase providers use loosely, so this page starts by saying which kind each program gives you. Microsoft Azure hands students an actual dollar credit — $100 over 12 months, no credit card — enough to host course projects. Google Colab skips credits entirely: its free tier runs Python notebooks in the browser with free GPU and TPU access, widely used for data science and machine learning coursework. Google Cloud Skills grants 200 credits, but they buy training labs and skill badges, not infrastructure time. AWS Educate currently includes no service credits at all — its labs run in provided sandboxes, and the old "$100 Educate credits" refer to a retired program. We list that plainly instead of repeating the outdated claim, because chasing a credit that no longer exists wastes an afternoon.
3 of these 4 deals were confirmed on the company's own page; the rest are marked Not yet verified. Catalog last changed 2026-09-07 · how we verify.
| Tool | Student deal | Verified |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Azure | $100 credit free for students | Verified |
| Google Colab | Free cloud GPUs + free Pro year for US students | Not yet verified |
| Google Cloud Skills | 200 free training credits for students | Verified |
| AWS Educate | Free cloud training, no verification | Verified |
Microsoft Azure Best for hosting course projects
It's the one program here with a real dollar credit — $100 of Azure credit to use within 12 months, plus free monthly amounts of 20+ popular services, with no credit card required to sign up.
Cloud hosting for course projects, with a $100 student credit over 12 months and no credit card needed.
- $100 Azure credit to use within 12 months, plus free monthly amounts of 20+ popular services for 12 months
- No credit card required to sign up
- Eligibility: full-time university students — sign up with your school email
Google Colab Best for free GPU and TPU time
The free tier gives browser-based Python notebooks with free (availability-limited) GPU and TPU access and runtimes up to ~12 hours, and verified US students can currently get Colab Pro free for a year.
Cloud Python notebooks with free GPU and TPU time; verified US students can get Pro free for one year.
- Free tier: browser notebooks with free (but availability-limited) GPU/TPU access, up to ~12h runtime, and idle timeouts
- Paid upgrades: Colab Pro $9.99/mo and Pro+ $49.99/mo for faster GPUs, more memory, and longer/background runtimes
- Pay As You Go: buy compute units (~$9.99 per 100 units) instead of a subscription — check their site
Google Cloud Skills Best for guided labs and skill badges
Enrolled students who apply with an institutional email get 200 Google Skills credits usable on any lab in the training catalog — training-lab credits rather than dollar credits for infrastructure — which expire one year after issue.
Cloud lab training with skill badges on Google Cloud; enrolled students apply with a school email for 200 lab credits.
- 200 Google Skills credits usable on any lab in the training catalog, plus skill badges and courses
- Eligibility: currently enrolled college and university students at accredited institutions in eligible countries
- Apply with the official training credits form using your institutional email; processing can take up to two weeks
AWS Educate Best for cloud training with no student verification
Anyone 13 or older can register with just an email — no credit card, no AWS account, no student verification — for self-paced courses and hands-on labs that run in provided AWS sandboxes rather than on service credits.
Cloud-skills courses with hands-on labs in AWS sandboxes, free to anyone 13+ with no student verification.
- Free self-paced courses and hands-on labs covering compute, storage, networking, and databases, with shareable badges on completion
- Register with just an email — no credit card, no AWS account, no student verification; open to anyone 13 and older
- Learners 18+ can use the AWS Educate job board for entry-level cloud roles and internships
The rest of the catalog
Those are the 4 picks for this list. The full catalog runs to 68 deals across coding, writing, research, studying, design, and productivity.