OpenAI ChatGPT Edu FAQ

OpenAI's ChatGPT Edu Agreement is tailored for the California State University (CSU) system, providing advanced AI capabilities for all employees and students. It offers the ability to build custom GPTs for sharing within campus workspaces, as well as the needed privacy and data protection, and other enterprise security such as single sign-on (SSO).

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot technology that can process natural human language and generate a response, enhancing personal productivity and assisting with teaching and learning activities. ChatGPT Edu provides access to OpenAI's current models and capabilities, including the GPT-5.6 model family, with model and feature availability managed through the CSUB workspace.

  • Enrolled students (active)
  • Staff
  • Faculty
  • Recent CSUB graduates for up to one year after graduation
  • All other affiliations are not eligible

Invitations to join the ChatGPT EDU Workspace are automatically sent based on your university affiliation.

  • Students: You will receive your invitation to join the ChatGPT EDU Workspace within 24-48 hours of enrollment.
  • Staff/Faculty: You will receive your invitation to join the ChatGPT EDU Workspace within 24-48 hours after HR updates PeopleSoft.
  • Recent Graduates: Eligible CSUB graduates may continue to access ChatGPT EDU for up to one year after graduation.
  • Other affiliations (e.g., volunteers, persons of interest, emeritus) do not have access to ChatGPT.
For steps on how to accept your ChatGPT EDU Workspace invitation, please review our ChatGPT EDU Onboarding Quick Start Guide.

ChatGPT EDU is funded through a systemwide CSU agreement with OpenAI; no funding came directly from CSUB to purchase this tool.

We use ChatGPT Edu, which gives campuswide access to OpenAI's current models and features through a university-managed workspace under the CSU's systemwide agreement.

Current Models: As of August 2026, OpenAI's current model family includes GPT-5.6. GPT-5.6 Sol is OpenAI's flagship reasoning model for complex work such as writing, research, coding, analysis, science, and other multi-step tasks. GPT-5.6 Sol Pro provides additional capability for especially demanding work where it is available.

Model Picker: Depending on workspace configuration and OpenAI's rollout, users may see options such as Instant, Medium, High, Extra High, and Pro. These options provide different levels of speed and reasoning rather than requiring users to select every underlying model directly. The exact options available depend on CSUB workspace settings, assigned roles, and current OpenAI availability.

Legacy Models: OpenAI may temporarily make select older models available to Enterprise and Edu workspaces during model transitions. Legacy models only appear when they remain supported and legacy model access has been enabled by a workspace administrator. Because models are retired over time, the available legacy-model list can change. Retired models, including GPT-4o and the original GPT-5 Instant and Thinking models, are no longer available in ChatGPT. The model picker is the best source for legacy models currently available to your account.

Compared with personal ChatGPT plans, ChatGPT Edu provides:

  • A university-managed workspace with enterprise privacy and security protections
  • Single sign-on and centralized workspace administration
  • Role-based access to models, features, plugins, and apps
  • Access to capabilities such as Projects, deep research, file and data analysis, and other advanced tools where enabled
  • Workspace-controlled access to current and eligible legacy models

Because OpenAI regularly updates its models and features, the model picker in your CSUB ChatGPT Edu workspace is the best source for the models and reasoning options currently available to you.

The CSU Chancellor's Office maintains a systemwide agreement with OpenAI to provide ChatGPT EDU access to eligible CSU users.

You can upload:

  • Level 1 (L1) and Level 2 (L2) information may be processed in ChatGPT EDU when applicable CSU requirements and procedures for confidential data are followed.
  • Public or openly shareable data that does not require special access controls.
  • De-identified data that has been stripped of personally identifiable information (PII) or other sensitive details.
  • Non-copyrighted material that you have permission to share and process.
  • For more details on data classification, refer to the CSU Data Classification guidelines.

Yes, the CSU ChatGPT Edu plan includes enterprise commercial data protection features like SAML Single Sign-On (SSO), domain verification, custom data retention windows, SOC 2 Type 2 compliance, and data encryption at rest and in transit.

Our agreement with OpenAI includes language that ensures your ChatGPT interactions and data are not used to train their underlying large language models or improve their services.

CSUB will not be monitoring individual user interactions or conversations in ChatGPT. CSUB will collect basic usage statistics to understand the extent of adoption and use.

The CSU contract explicitly prevents OpenAI from training its models on any data provided through our EDU accounts. This helps keep our data private and avoid the potential loss of intellectual property. Free and paid OpenAI accounts, as well as accounts with other Generative AI companies, do not have these protections. In fact, as a part of the terms you must agree to when creating an account, prompts, conversations, and files you create belong to the company and can be used to train their models.

Yes. ChatGPT Edu users can build and share custom GPTs within the CSUB workspace when permitted by their assigned workspace role and permissions.

  • Custom GPTs use models and capabilities currently supported by OpenAI and enabled for the CSUB workspace.
  • Available models may change as OpenAI introduces new models and retires older ones.
  • GPT capabilities such as file access, image generation, apps, or external actions depend on workspace configuration and permissions.
  • The model and capability options shown while creating or editing a GPT are the best source for what is currently available.

ChatGPT is just like any other CSU-provided tool. Like email, your data is not shared with or reviewed by anyone, except as a part of an officially sanctioned investigation. Your professors cannot see your conversation history or custom GPTs, even if they ask.

Yes, OpenAI provides applications for various platforms, including iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS, ensuring users can access ChatGPT across different devices.

  • Free Plan Users: Faculty, staff, and students using the Free plan with their @csub.edu email address for their personal ChatGPT account will be prompted to archive or migrate their existing chat history into the CSU ChatGPT workspace upon logging in. This ensures a smooth transition to the new environment.
  • Paid Plan Users: Faculty, staff, and students with Paid plans (e.g., Plus, Team, or Pro) who are using their @csub.edu email address for their personal ChatGPT account will have an opportunity to migrate their chat history before their paid account is deactivated once they are invited to ChatGPT EDU. Upon accepting their invitation to ChatGPT EDU, paid users will automatically receive a prorated refund for their remaining subscription period.

Student assistants should use their student ChatGPT Edu account for both student and student assistant activities.

Use of GenAI for assignments can range from absolutely forbidden to required. Your professor can specify if, when, and how AI should be used for a given course or assignment.

Academic integrity is core to quality education. This tool, like others, can be used unethically, so it's important to work with your faculty members to understand when and how it's permissible to use generative AI.

The ethical questions around Generative AI have a couple of angles, including the training data and the ethical use of AI. Models like the ones ChatGPT creates consume tons of literature from all over the internet which can contain the biases of the people or systems that created it. When using generative AI, we need to take care to evaluate the content it creates critically to avoid perpetuating biases, even unintentionally.

Training data can also contain copyrighted or protected intellectual property, which may not have been licensed to share, which raises concerns about the unethical use of that content. Considering the ethical use of AI in the higher education space, we should recognize that academic integrity is core to education. We need to make sure to use this tool ethically, only using it when approved by your professor and citing it when appropriate.

This new tool we've been given is like a calculator — when that was first introduced, people were concerned it would turn student's minds to mush. Quite to the contrary, after students learn how to do long division, they use the calculator to get to the next level — analysis and discussion of the meaning of the numbers.

Generative AI works by learning about things people have said in the past — consuming tons of information from the internet. As a result, the trained model makes its best guess based on what it's previously read to help answer the prompts it's presented with. However, when the model inferes the right response, it can make a mistake.

Training data can also be explicitly false — there may not be good examples for the prompt, or sometimes models infer responses inappropriately, which is also called hallucination. Making sure to provide well-developed prompts and to validate any information provided by generative AI can help you make sure you're using as accurate information as possible.

A full suite of self-paced tutorials and deep-dive guides is now live in the CSU AI Commons, including:

AI learning resources are available in the CSU AI Commons. You can also browse the official ChatGPT Help Center for current documentation on models, Projects, deep research, plugins, apps, and other ChatGPT features.

Energy usage comes in two flavors: training and usage. Training generative AI models like ChatGPT takes a boatload of energy up front — over 2-3 months, it's estimated that it takes 20-25 megawatts, which is the same as powering 20,000 American homes for the same time. Using Generative AI models is also called inference, and an excellent Epoch AI article has estimated that the energy of an average ChatGPT query is about the same as an average Google query.

In terms of environmental impact, two major topics are greenhouse gas emissions and water usage associated with training and inference. OpenAI does all of its training and inference on rented servers from Microsoft, which reported that its servers will be even better than carbon and water neutral by 2030, including the use of its servers for AI training and inference.

AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are not capable of providing medical or mental health advice. They cannot substitute for a qualified therapist or licensed physician. Do not take any action that could affect your health without first consulting your doctor or a counselor.

If you think you may be having a mental health emergency, call or text the Crisis Lifeline at 988 or call 911. If you have medical concerns, always seek guidance from a qualified healthcare professional.

  • CSUB Health Center: (661) 654-2394
  • CSUB Counseling Center: (661) 654-3366

For after-hours counseling assistance, call (661) 654-3366 and press 2 when the voicemail answers. This service is available after hours, on weekends, during holidays, and when CSUB is not in session.