价格是领先关键：高校大宗采购每人每月仅「几美元」，相较一般教育用户常见的每月20美元、企业最高可达60美元更便宜。加州州立大学系统为约50万名师生采购，每年支付1,500万美元，折算约每人每月2.50美元；同案中微软 Copilot 报价约每人每月30美元（后来对学界降至约18美元）。亚利桑那州立大学9月起覆盖全校，至11月下旬约1万名学生与6,400名员工启用。
采用呈现长尾与分化：伊利诺伊大学香槟分校约200名教员活跃，其中一位研究者9月使用742次（按工作周约34次/天），但多数人整月少于10次。内布拉斯加大学奥马哈分校调查数百名员工与师生，92%愿推荐，普遍每周节省1至5小时，约四分之一用于课程设计与辅导；9月约800名活跃用户。竞争方面，Google 提供 Gemini Pro 学生免费一年；迈阿密-戴德学区为10万名学生部署免费层，另花15万美元购买400个 Pro 授权。德州州立大学一个月内约6.9万台设备连到 Copilot，但校内 ChatGPT 使用量约为其两倍，Gemini 也略高。
OpenAI is gaining an early foothold in US higher education, selling over 700,000 ChatGPT licenses to about 35 public universities. Usage data from 20 contracted campuses shows more than 14 million calls in September, averaging 176 calls per user that month. OpenAI says colleges worldwide have bought “well over a million” licenses, and private-school deals likely push totals higher.
Pricing drives much of the lead. Bulk campus contracts run a few dollars per user per month, versus OpenAI’s typical $20/month for smaller education cohorts and up to $60/month for corporate tiers. The California State University system bought access for roughly 500,000 people and pays $15 million per year, effectively about $2.50 per user per month, compared with Microsoft Copilot quotes around $30/month (later cut to about $18/month for academia). Arizona State’s campuswide rollout saw nearly 10,000 students and 6,400 employees activate licenses by late November.
Adoption is uneven, with “superusers” accounting for outsized activity. At the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, about 200 faculty are active; one researcher logged 742 calls in September (about 34 per workday), while most users made fewer than 10 calls all month. At the University of Nebraska at Omaha, a survey of a few hundred staff and students found 92% would recommend the tool and most reported saving 1–5 hours per week; the school had about 800 active users by September. Competition is accelerating: Google offers Gemini Pro free for a year to college students, and Texas State saw ChatGPT usage about twice Copilot’s despite roughly 69,000 unique devices connecting to Copilot on campus Wi‑Fi in a month around November.
