Six benefits of joining Amazon Student

Attention, college students: Whether you’re headed near or far to college this year, you’re going to need “stuff.” Join Amazon Student and get FREE two-day shipping for college students. The online shopping mecca is offering its Amazon Student program free for six months, so you can get all of the things that you need (or want) faster and without paying shipping costs. By providing your personal .edu email address, you will receive six months of FREE two-day shipping with Amazon Prime on eligible purchases, and will continue receiving Amazon Prime benefits at a cost of $49 a year for up to four years with automatic renewal after your free trial.

If you continue with a paid $49 subscription to Amazon Student, you’ll enjoy the benefits of Amazon Prime for 50% including these:

FREE two-day shipping on millions of items, including books, food and dorm essentials. Whether you need a textbook or personal items, they will get to you on time for free. There is no minimum for Prime-eligible purchases (as there typically is with free super-saver shipping) and you can upgrade to one-day shipping for just $3.99/item if you really procrastinated.
Deals and promotions exclusively for students.
Unlimited instant streaming of 41,000 movies & TV episodes, so you can avoid a cable bill and still have shows and movies to watch during study breaks.
Borrow free Kindle books (no due dates!). Don’t have a Kindle? Kindle books can be read on tablets, phones, PCs or Macs with free Kindle reading apps, or on the Kindle Cloud Reader.
Access to more than a million songs and hundreds of playlists, ad-free.
$10 credit for referring friends via email and social networks with no limit on the number of referrals made

Setting up your account, cancellations, and upgrades

You must use your .edu email address to sign up, but that email address doesn’t need to be registered with your Amazon account – it is only used for an initial verification email to show that you are in fact a student. If you don’t wish to continue with paid Prime benefits, you can set them to not automatically upgrade at any time during the free period. If you’d like to upgrade to the paid membership before the end of the free period to access Prime Instant Videos, Prime Music and Kindle Owners’ Lending Library sooner, you can upgrade at any time to the $49/year paid Amazon Student plan. If you have already paid for Amazon Prime membership and wish to convert to Amazon Student, Amazon will refund the remaining months of your Prime membership fee. You’ll no longer have access to certain Amazon Prime benefits such as instant video, Music and the lending library unless you sign up for a paid plan.

Before you sign up for Amazon Student and start making purchases, remember that the debt you take on in college will stay with you long after. Check out the following stories about financial responsibility while in college.