There’s something almost irresistible about seeing a student discount.

A $12.99 Spotify Premium subscription drops to $6.99, and most of us are more likely to think about the money we’re saving than the sum the company gets in return. But a student discount isn’t just a deal. It can also represent an investment in a future customer. 

Student discounts are beneficial because they make products and services more affordable to people as strapped for cash as students, but companies may ultimately gain more from them than students do. The same offer that saves money now can give a company years to become familiar, convenient and difficult to replace.

That long-term opportunity makes students attractive consumers for brands as students build routines and figure out which brands and services fit into their lives.

Industry research suggests that students are also actively looking for these offers. In 2022, Student Beans, a student discount platform, reported that 90% of college students look for a student discount when making a purchase. It also found that 98% of surveyed 16- to 24-year-olds would consider purchasing from a brand again after a promotion ended.

That doesn’t mean 98% of students will become lifelong customers, but it does help explain why getting the first purchase matters.

The first time we purchase something, we might compare prices, read reviews and evaluate alternatives. After using the same service successfully for two years, we’re probably not going to conduct a fresh investigation every month.

A student discount is especially powerful in this context because it gives a brand time to build loyalty among its customers.

Spotify, for example, allows eligible college students to receive its discounted Premium Student plan for up to four years with annual verification. Four years is plenty of time for someone to build playlists, teach an algorithm what they like, learn an interface and make the app part of their everyday routine.

At that point, switching isn’t impossible, but it just might feel that way.

Marketers sometimes describe this as a switching cost. Despite the name, the cost doesn’t always involve money; it can simply be the time or inconvenience associated with changing from one option to another.

Maybe you’d have to rebuild playlists. Maybe your files already live inside one company’s software. Maybe a different platform organizes everything differently. None of those things physically prevent you from leaving; they just make staying easier.

Recent research on subscription behavior shows how powerful that kind of inertia can be. A 2025 study published in the American Economic Review examined data from payment cards — debit cards and credit cards, for example — and found that subscription cancellations increased considerably when card replacements forced consumers to actively renew their subscriptions. 

The researchers modeled the effect through consumer inattention and switching costs, estimating that these frictions substantially increased sellers’ revenue from existing subscribers.

Put more simply, some consumers keep paying their fees partly because nothing forces them to reconsider the decision — that finding should make any college student with a list of automatic monthly charges pause for a second.

Still, discounts don’t guarantee loyalty.

A 2024 survey commissioned by SheerID found that 40% of Gen Z college students said they would switch from one brand to another for an exclusive discount. Of the students surveyed, 73% said a discount would make them more likely to join a loyalty program.

Discounts can build loyalty, but they can also reveal how fragile it is. If a better price can pull a customer away, maybe the loyalty was never to the brand, but to saving money. As a result, brands can’t rely on student pricing forever. A discount might make trying the product easier, but the experience that follows still has to give student customers a reason to stay. The discount might win the first decision, but the product has to win the later ones.

For students, recognizing that distinction matters.

Student discounts are ultimately a good thing when they make useful products and services more accessible to students. USC students have access to discounts across streaming, software, technology, retail and more. Those savings can matter when students are already balancing tuition, housing, food, transportation and countless smaller expenses attached to student life.

Sometimes, both sides win.

The student gets access to a useful product for less money during a stage of life when prices can matter considerably. The company gets an opportunity to introduce itself to someone whose preferences may still be flexible and then spend several years proving that it deserves to remain in that person’s life.

But when the student rate disappears, are you staying because the product still deserves your money, or because the decision has become too familiar to reconsider? That’s a question worth asking before your next renewal.

The discount has an expiration date; the habit it helped create might not.