Unable to confirm your University ID

Hey there, Rasindu Gunasekara

From what you’ve described, it sounds like you’re trying to sign up for the Azure for Students subscription using this link: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/students

If so, the "Unable to confirm your University ID" message usually means Azure couldn’t verify your institution during the academic eligibility check.

Azure uses Microsoft’s verified academic institution database which includes schools, colleges, and universities that have successfully registered for Microsoft’s educational licensing. If your university isn’t listed there, students often run into verification errors even if they can sign into other Microsoft services.

Please also note that having the GitHub Student Developer Pack doesn’t bypass Azure’s verification process. Even when using the GitHub route, you still need to complete the Azure Students sign‑up form and verify your university email address. When I used the GitHub method last year, I still had to complete the sign-up form and verify my university email address.

Some students have reported that signing in with their university account allowed the Azure for Students subscription to be added directly to their university tenant. If you try this, please make sure:

• You can access the Azure portal using your university account,
• Your university’s IT team permits students to use Azure resources on the institution’s tenant,

My university doesn't allow students to use the Azure portal. So if you managed to sign-up, you wouldn't be able to complete the sign-up workflow due to you not being able to access the portal.

Regarding your ability to sign into other Microsoft products with your university email. This works because those services (such as Microsoft 365) are included in the licences your university has already assigned to your account. Azure for Students is different as it’s an individual subscription that each student must sign-up for themselves.

If verification continues to fail, please ask your university’s IT department to raise a support request with Azure Billing. They can do this through the Azure portal here: https://portal.azure.com/#blade/Microsoft_Azure_Support/HelpAndSupportBlade

The reason why you’re unable to raise a ticket yourself is because Azure requires an active subscription to attach support requests to. Since the student subscription hasn’t been applied yet, the system won’t allow you to open a case.

If your university participates in the Azure for Education (Dev Tools for Teaching) program, they can also raise a ticket through this portal: https://azureforeducation.microsoft.com/en-us/institutions/Contact

Hope this helps,
Nathan

Hi @Rasindu Gunasekara

First, nothing is broken with your account. "Unable to confirm your University ID" means Microsoft's automated academic verification couldn't validate your enrollment, which is completely separate from your school account working fine in Office and other products. Office works because your university has Microsoft education licenses. Azure for Students runs its own eligibility check at signup, and that's the step failing.

The usual causes, in order of likelihood:

1. The verification wasn't done with the official university email. It must be your institution-issued address, entered exactly, with no aliases or typos. If your university uses multiple domains (a student subdomain versus the main domain), try the primary one too.
2. Your university's domain isn't registered in Microsoft's academic verification database. This is the most common cause when Office works but Azure verification fails, and it happens with institutions that haven't been added to the Azure for Students recognition list even though they have Microsoft education agreements.
3. Basic eligibility: you must be 18 or older and a full-time student at an accredited degree-granting institution, and the offer is one per person, so a previous redemption also triggers this error.

What to do:

1. Sign up directly at https://azure.microsoft.com/free/students in a fresh InPrivate window, signed in with the school account, and verify with your school email.
2. If that keeps failing, use the GitHub route, which bypasses the email domain check entirely. Get verified for the GitHub Student Developer Pack at https://education.github.com/pack (you can verify there with your student ID or enrollment proof), then on the Azure for Students signup page choose Sign in with GitHub instead of email verification.
3. Ask your university IT team to confirm whether the institution is registered for Azure for Students recognition. Since they manage your tenant, they can raise it with Microsoft's education team to get the domain added.
4. If none of that works, contact Azure Education support directly at https://aka.ms/AzureEduSupport and ask for manual eligibility verification. This channel works even though you can't open a normal support ticket without a subscription.

Nobody on this forum can look up whether your specific university is in the verification database, so options 3 and 4 are the definitive paths if the direct signup and GitHub routes both fail.

Reference: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/free-account-students-faq/