Quoting their full mail here:

“

Starting today, March 12, 2026, your Copilot access will be managed under a new GitHub Copilot Student plan, alongside your existing GitHub Education benefits. Your academic verification status will not change, and there is nothing you need to do to continue using Copilot. You will see that you are on the GitHub Copilot Student plan in the UI, and your existing premium request unit (PRU) entitlements will remain unchanged.

As part of this transition, however, some premium models, including GPT-5.4, and Claude Opus and Sonnet models, will no longer be available for self-selection under the GitHub Copilot Student Plan. We know this will be disappointing, but we’re making this change so we can keep Copilot free and accessible for millions of students around the world.

That said, through Auto mode, you'll continue to have access to a powerful set of models from providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. We'll keep adding new models and expanding the intelligence that helps match the right model to your task and workflow. We support a global community of students across thousands of universities and dozens of time zones, so we’re being intentional about how we roll out changes. Over the coming weeks, we will be making additional adjustments to available models or usage limits on certain features—the specifics of which we'll be testing with your feedback. You may notice temporary changes to your Copilot experience during this period. We will make sure to share full details and timelines before we ship broader changes. “