ChatGPT Edu soon to be available for eligible CU faculty, staff and students

The University of Colorado has entered into a three-year agreement with OpenAI, renewable annually, to provide ChatGPT Edu systemwide to students, staff and faculty. Each campus and the system office will stand up and manage its own secure instance of the tool to provide equitable access while ensuring security and privacy. 

Each campus and the system office will have their own, unique ChatGPT Edu environment. Faculty, staff and students, using their university-issued email address, will be able to log into that environment. OpenAI will not use any university environment to train its large language models. 

Users will be required to take a brief training explaining the dos and don’ts of using the university’s environment. They will also be directed to opportunities to learn more about making the most effective use of the tool. As long as an individual is an enrolled full time or part time student, faculty or staff member, they will retain access to their university-sponsored ChatGPT Edu environment.

Key Issues

The AI Working Group initially determined that a commercial solution to AI tools was the preferred path forward. Then the AI Working Group developed a set of guiding principles by which to evaluate potential vendors along with other factors. You can see the list of guiding principles. The working group also considered the following issue areas as they made their final recommendations to leadership. 

  • A needed investment
    Investing in this tool is an investment in CU’s students and their future success as well as the ability for all eligible faculty and staff to have access to this resource. To develop a workforce prepared to meet the demands of our economy and empower graduates to pursue the lives they choose, this tool must be part of our educational approach. Costs will be covered by the System Office in the initial year of the tool’s use. 
  • Vendor Selection
    A diverse group of faculty and staff, with content area expertise, informed by external market analysis, discussed multiple GenAI approaches and recommended a vendor to university leadership. You can learn more about the process and see all committee members.
  • Sustainability
    While AI presents the opportunity for significant advances in areas such as energy optimization, weather prediction and efficient systems development, it also represents a real sustainability challenge due to its resource and energy demands. Our four campuses are united in their passion to create opportunities to reduce campus energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. CU takes seriously its obligation to help educate students about appropriate use of the tool to limit impact wherever possible. 
  • Privacy
    CU has and will continue to prioritize privacy and security as core tenets of all its data governance practices. The introduction of an AI tool does not change that. CU’s multiple ChatGPT Edu environments will never be used to train OpenAI’s large language models.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

General Questions

What is CU’s ChatGPT Edu?

ChatGPT Edu is a generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot technology that can process natural human language, written or spoken, images, and videos, and generate a response. Through a partnership with OpenAI, CU will stand up five unique ChatGPT Edu environments for all four campuses and the system office. Each environment will be exclusive to the specific community it serves and will not be used to train OpenAI’s large language models. 

Can each user create custom GPTs? Can those custom GPTs be shared?

Yes, users can build custom GPTs tailored to specific courses or administrative functions, which can be shared within their campus or system workspace to enhance learning and operational efficiency. Users will be able to create and share GPTs with individual users as well as multiple users using the invite feature. Users will not be able to share a custom GPT outside their campus or system environment. 

It is important to note that content generated in the campus or system environments can be shared to anyone by anyone within that specific environment. Please be aware of this as you make decisions about what types of content you share. 

Where can I get help learning how to use ChatGPT Edu?

Self-paced basic learning resources are available from ChatGPT below:

If you are looking for more in-depth resources, all faculty, staff and students can use Coursera: 

CU on Coursera Catalog – Free and full access to open courses from across University of Colorado Coursera portfolio from all four campuses, available to faculty, staff and students. 

Coursera Partner Consortium Catalog – Free access to open courses taught by Coursera’s elite global university partners, available to faculty, staff and students.

Offerings span many different fields of interest and skill levels.

Grow with Google AI Essentials Certificate – UCCS, Denver, and Boulder students can access the opportunity to earn Grow with Google certificates using the links below. This includes the most popular certificate, AI Essentials:

What about the environmental impacts of artificial intelligence?

While AI proficiency is becoming an important part of a well-rounded education and career-readiness, it is also important to acknowledge that current large language model AI technologies are resource intensive. Large language model AI systems require significant computing power, which can increase energy use and environmental impacts. Because CU is committed to doing our part for environmental stewardship and sustainability, we encourage our community to consider the following options for heightening our sustainable use of the tool:

  • Optimize AI prompts: Providing AI tools with well-structured prompts can reduce unnecessary AI processing. It reduces the number of queries required, which improves efficiency and lowers computational load. 
  • Turn off unneeded AI integrations: Some software applications have AI-powered assistants running in the background. Going into the applications’ settings and disabling those assistants when not in use will lower energy consumption.

Why did CU partner with OpenAI?

CU believes that educational equity requires all members of the CU community to have access to the tool. The President’s AI Working Group, which included area experts from each campus and the system office, recommended the partnership with OpenAI following a review process. Outside some clinical and research settings, OpenAI’s ChatGPT is already the most widely individually adopted AI tool across the CU system. 

Who is paying for the ChatGPT Edu licenses?

ChatGPT Edu licenses will be funded by the System Office in year one. Campuses will assume the cost of their individual environments following. 

How much will ChatGPT Edu cost me?

CU ChatGPT Edu users receive the foundational functionality for free. CU purchased the plan for faculty, staff and students.

How much will ChatGPT Edu cost CU?

The current contract, which will be paid for from the system office in the first year, includes $2 million in licensing costs annually supporting 100,000 users. 

Does the use of CU’s ChatGPT Edu change any “rules of the road” for general policy compliance or compliance with things like the student code of conduct?

No. Applicable Regents, system and campus administrative policies as well as student codes of conduct and other student-related policies apply and should govern decision making and use as they do across the university and the variety of teaching-, learning- and work-related tools provided by CU.

CU is a public institution and is subject to the Colorado Open Records Act. How does CU’s obligations under that law apply to those who are using ChatGPT Edu?

The Colorado Open Records Act allows the public to view work-related records of public employees and the use of ChatGPT Edu as the platform does not impact whether a record is considered public or not. If you work for the university and use ChatGPT Edu to conduct university business, the records you create may be considered public.  There are a number of statutory exceptions to the open records act including but not limited to personnel information, student records and donor information. If you would like more information about how the open records act applies to university employees, you can check out the university open records policy or get more information on our open records request page. 

Will CU’s obligations under the Federal Educational Records Protection Act change in the ChatGPT Edu environment?

No. All existing federal and state laws protecting student records apply to any and all AI use, including requirements for data protection, privacy and non-discrimination. 

Does CU’s provision of the tool mean that ChatGPT Edu must be used in classrooms?

No. Faculty retain control of their curriculum and learning environment. This is a core tenet of academic freedom and is protected at CU. The provision of the tool is meant to provide additional teaching and learning options, should faculty wish to use them. 

Will CU provide faculty with support to innovate use of the tool for scholarly and creative work?

 

Yes. New awards and grants will be available through funding from the CU System office to support faculty who want to engage in this space. 

​

Privacy & Security

Will CU track usage? What data will the university collect?

CU will not monitor individual users’ interactions with ChatGPT Edu. CU will collect basic use statistics to better understand adoption and use patterns. This data will only be reported publicly in the aggregate. CU will retain the right to audit individual user interactions in isolated and limited cases.

CU’s ChatGPT Edu is designed for institutional use, with enhanced privacy and security controls compared to consumer accounts. Your conversations are private to you by default, are not monitored by CU IT, and are not used to train OpenAI's models. Access to CU ChatGPT Edu environment content by OpenAI personnel is restricted and is generally limited to specific cases such as incident resolution, user-authorized recovery or legal requirements.

You can delete individual chats or all chats from within ChatGPT Edu. When you delete a chat, it is removed from your view immediately and scheduled for permanent deletion from OpenAI systems within 30 days, with limited exceptions (e.g., legal or security obligations). Deleted chats are not recoverable. Note: Archiving is not deletion; it only hides chats from your main view.

Will my information be used to train OpenAI’s large language models?

No. CU’s agreement with OpenAI prohibits the company from using any CU environment to train its large language models. 

Is my data safe?

Yes, CU has taken steps to protect your data, including secure sign-on using your CU credentials and data encryption. OpenAI also meets recognized security and privacy standards.

​

Account Logistics

How do I get ChatGPT Edu?

When the system is fully launched this spring, your campus or the system office will reach out with steps you will need to take to use the tool. These steps will include logging in with your CU-issued email address as well as taking a brief training. 

Who is eligible for CU’s ChatGPT Edu?

Enrolled full time and part time students, faculty and staff of all CU campuses and the system office are eligible to use the tool. Licenses are not intended for alumni or other campus community members such as volunteers or guests. For specifics on this topic, refer to the campus or system office to which you are connected. 

What happens to my account when I graduate or leave the university? Can I move my intellectual property out of the system?

At this time, users in CU’s secure ChatGPT Edu workspace are not able to directly transfer their full chat history or the intellectual property they own to a personal ChatGPT account upon leaving the institution. This restriction reflects CU’s commitment to privacy, data security, and appropriate stewardship of institutional environments.

That said, users retain practical options to preserve important work. Key chats or outputs can be manually copied and saved, and ChatGPT Edu can also be prompted to generate a structured summary of prior conversations - such as key themes, memories, or style preferences - which all can be exported as a markdown file and used to “seed” context in a separate personal account.

CU and the OpenAI Product team are actively exploring secure, streamlined approaches to better support specific transition scenarios in the future, while maintaining strong privacy and data-protection standards.

Additionally, nothing about the use of the CU ChatGPT Edu changes the intellectual property rights various users enjoy based on their relationship to the university.

What if I already have a ChatGPT account under my CU-issued email address?

If you currently have a free or paid ChatGPT account associated with your CU-issued email address, you will need to decide whether you want to merge it with the CU-wide ChatGPT Edu account or change it to a personal email for personal use only. If you choose to merge, you must first complete the Precipio training. After completing the training, you will be prompted to either merge your existing account and data into the university wide environment or export and delete your existing chat history to reset your account. Please note that deleting your chat history is permanent and can't be undone. Optionally, if you choose not to merge, log into ChatGPT using your current process and update your email associated with that account to a personal email. ChatGPT Edu will not prompt account transfers for accounts associated with non-CU email addresses. A personal ChatGPT account cannot be used with any university information or data as it does not meet university IT security and compliance policies. 

Users with university paid individual accounts may continue using their existing accounts temporarily, pending confirmation that CU’s tenant configuration and SSO can support users who are provisioned into a managed tenant while retaining comparable advanced features. 

​

CU AI Working Group

The AI Working Group convened and discussed mulitple GenAI approaches, drawing on external market analysis.  The group then provided the OpenAI recommendation to the president and chancellors, who approved the contract to move forward. 

CU Anschutz 

  • Ryan Davis, Associate Vice Chancellor for Budget, Planning and Campus Strategy (Co-Chair)
  • Chris Smith, CIO and Vice Chancellor for Information Strategy and Services 

CU Boulder 

  • Danell Thompson, Assistant Director, Office of Contracts & Grants 
  • Conor Canaday, Office of Information Technology 

CU Denver 

  • Phillip DeLeon, Associate Vice Chancellor for Research and Chief Research Officer 
  • Ronica Rooks, Professor in the Department of Health and Behavioral Sciences and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ Director of Online Education 

UCCS

  • Kacey Ross, Teaching Professor / Director of the First-Year Rhetoric & Writing Program / Director of Writing Across the Curriculum English 
  • Martin Key, Professor of Digital Strategy & Marketing; Team Lead of Marketing, Strategy, and International Business 

CU System 

  • Ed Mills, AVP and Chief Procurement Officer, PSC 
  • Scott Munson, AVP and CIO, UIS (Co-Chair) 

CU AI Guiding Principles

Drafted by CU’s AI Committee & Slalom Consulting – Fall 2025

Privacy and Data Protection - Safeguard personal and institutional data to ensure privacy and responsible AI use.

Fairness and Access - Promote inclusive, unbiased AI systems that benefit all members of the community.

Security and Safety - Protects AI systems and users from harm through proactive risk management.

Ethical Use and Societal Benefit - Advances AI aligned with its values to serve the public good and societal well-being.

Transparency - Openly communicates how and when AI is used to build trust and informed engagement.

Staying Human-First - Ensures AI supports—not replaces—human judgment, creativity, and academic values.

Explainability - Makes AI decisions understandable to foster accountability and confident use.