Claude for Education FAQs

Using Claude

How do I access Claude on different devices?

You can access Claude through multiple platforms to suit your needs:

Web browser

Visit claude.ai on any web browser.
Enter your Stanford.edu email address and select "Continue with SSO."
Works on both desktop and mobile browsers.

Desktop application

Download Claude for Desktop for macOS or Windows.
Install by visiting the Claude downloads page and following the installation instructions.
Launch from your Applications folder (Mac) or Start menu (Windows).

Mobile applications

iOS: Download from the App Store.
Android: Download from Google Play Store.
Sign in with the same university account you use on the web version.
See our Claude Mobile Apps section for more information.

All platforms synchronize your conversations, allowing you to start on one device and continue on another. Mobile apps offer additional features like photo analysis and voice dictation. (Source: Claude Support)

Who is eligible to use Claude for Education at Stanford?

The Standard tier is available to Stanford faculty, staff, students, and postdocs with an active SUNet ID, at no cost.
Premium licenses are available to anyone with a SUNet ID and a valid PTA.

To access the the Standard tier, a SUNet ID must be a member of one of the following groups:
stanford:affiliate-fellow
stanford:faculty-active
stanford:faculty-emeritus
stanford:faculty-onleave
stanford:faculty-otherteaching
stanford:staff-academic
stanford:staff-active
stanford:staff-casual
stanford:staffcasual
stanford:staff-emeritus
stanford:staff-onleave
stanford:staff-student
stanford:stafftemp
stanford:staff-temporary
stanford:student-active
stanford:student-onleave
stanford:student-postdoc

Can I request an account for a shared mailbox or service account?

No. Standard tier accounts are only available to Stanford faculty, staff, students, and postdocs.
Premium tier accounts are only available to SUNet IDs and require a valid PTA.

How does the Stanford offering compare to what is commercially available from Anthropic?

The free Standard tier is equivalent to Anthropic's Claude Enterprise $20 per month plan, and the Premium tier is equivalent to the Claude Enterprise $200 per month plan.

What is the difference between the Standard and Premium tiers offered by Stanford University?

Both tiers have access to the same features and models, but the Premium tier has a higher usage quota.

Anthropic doesn't publish exact rate limits, as they can vary throughout the day based on overall usage. That said, the Premium tier generally offers around 5x the usage quotas of the Standard tier.

What connectors, plugins, and addons are available?

View the Approved Connectors for AI Services webpage to learn more.

If you would like to use a connector that isn't on the list, please submit a ServiceNow ticket to have the connector reviewed.

I am having problems with my existing personal or business account. Can Stanford help me with that account?

The university has no access to or control over your personal account. If you encounter problems with it, you will need to work with the vendor to resolve those issues.

Can my personal or Teams subscription be tied to the new Stanford offering without migrating?

No. A personal subscription of any type, setup outside the Stanford service is not able to be moved into the university account. You will need to migrate your data into the new Stanford service if you wish to continue using it. Moving forward, you cannot have a personal account associated with a @stanford.edu email address. If you currently have a personal account under a @stanford.edu email address, you will need to either move that data to another account or migrate that information to the Stanford provided account. You will lose access to the old account later this year if no action is taken.

See the FAQ item below titled "How do I migrate my personal Claude account to the new Stanford offering?" for more information about migrating a personal account with an @stanford.edu email address.

Can our Teams/Enterprise admin be given administrator access to the Stanford service?

No. Administrative access cannot be granted to other groups, even if they have existing accounts outside the Stanford provided service.

I have a personal or business account. Do I have to move to a Stanford account?

No. But moving forward, you cannot have a personal account associated with a @stanford.edu email address. If you currently have a personal account under a @stanford.edu email address, you will need to either move that data to another account or migrate that information to the Stanford-provided account. You will lose access to the old account later this year if no action is taken.

Please note that the use of Stanford data is approved only when accessed through the Stanford-provided account.

I have a personal or business account under an email alias. Am I effected by this change?

Yes. This will apply to any variation of a stanford.edu email address including aliases and plus addresses.

Anthropic will not allow the creation of new accounts under any @stanford.edu domain. If you currently have a personal account under a @stanford.edu email address, you will need to move that data to another account. Anthropic will delete the old stanford.edu account later this year.

Please note that the use of Stanford data is approved only when accessed through the Stanford provided account.

I have a personal account under a Stanford subdomain like law.stanford.edu or cs.stanford.edu. Will I be forced to migrate to the new service?

No. Existing accounts created under subdomains do not appear to be in scope.

Please note that the use of Stanford data is approved only when accessed through the Stanford-provided account.

I would like to create a personal account under a Stanford.edu email address. Can I do that?

No. Anthropic will not allow the creation of new accounts under the @stanford.edu domain.

Please note that the use of Stanford data is approved only when accessed through the Stanford-provided account.

How do I migrate my personal Claude account to a non-Stanford.edu email address?

If you need to migrate your current Anthropic account to a personal email, you would need to work with Anthropic support to do that. University IT would not be able to assist you.

How do I migrate my personal Claude account to the new Stanford offering?

Unfortunately, Anthropic does not support the automatic migration of data from personal accounts to highly secure HIPAA ready environments. You should save or export anything in your personal account that you want to keep. After December 31, 2026 you will no longer be able to access your personal account.

Will Claude Code on mobile be available in Stanford's Claude for Education offering?

At this time, beta products like Claude Code for mobile are not covered by the Stanford agreement. Once that product is fully released by Anthropic, it will likely be included in the Stanford plan.

Will Claude models like Mythos and Fable be available in Stanford's Claude for Education offering?

Although Anthropic has redeployed Claude Fable 5, this tool remains disabled in the Stanford enterprise environment as it does not currently align with the university’s obligations for data governance, research protection, and institutional risk management. If you have questions, please submit a Help request.

Will Claude Design, Claude Science, Claude Code Remote Control, etc. be available in Stanford's Claude for Education offering?

At this time, beta products like Claude Design, Claude Science, Claude Code Remote Control, Claude Code Web, etc. are not covered by the Stanford agreement. Once that product is fully released by Anthropic, it will likely be included in the Stanford plan.

Who owns and manages the data for Claude for Education account?

Stanford University is the designated Primary Owner and manages your Claude for Education account and all associated data. (Source: Anthropic Privacy Center) Stanford treats this like any other UIT maintained system. If you consider Google Drive or Microsoft 365 email, we have the capability to retrieve data for public safety or litigation reasons. Otherwise, data entered into the tool is not reviewed by the university.

Will Anthropic use my inputs to train their models?

No. Stanford has negotiated service agreements to protect Stanford data. Anthropic will not inputs or outputs from the Stanford-provided accounts to train models in any of their products.

How long does Anthropic store my data?

Anthropic retains your chats and coding sessions in the product to provide you with a consistent product experience. You control your conversations and can delete your chats anytime from your dashboard. When you delete a conversation it's:

Removed from your chat history immediately
Deleted from Anthropic's back end storage systems within 30 days

Incognito chats are automatically deleted within 30 days unless flagged as a Usage Policy violation. Learn more about Incognito chats for your organization. (Source: Anthropic Privacy Center)

How can I learn more about using Claude?

You can find more information on using Claude at Anthropic's Help Center. Common topics include:

Billing

How will billing be structured in the new Claude for Education plan?

There are two tiers:

Standard: Free to students, postdocs, faculty, and staff, and is equivalent to Anthropic's Claude Enterprise $20 per month plan.
Premium: Has a monthly charge that requires a PTA and is equivalent to Anthropic's Claude Enterprise $200 per month plan.

Can I pay month to month, instead of for the duration of the contract term?

No. Rates are charged based on contract terms, and purchase of a license requires a commitment to the remainder of the term at the prorated rate. Licenses cannot be charged monthly and cannot be terminated once purchased.

What rate limits and thresholds are in place for Claude's Standard and Premium tiers?

Anthropic doesn't publish exact rate limits, as they can vary throughout the day based on overall usage. That said, the Premium tier generally offers around 5x the usage quotas of the Standard tier.

What payment methods are required for the Premium tier?

A valid PTA is required to purchase the Premium tier. STAP funds cannot be used for this upgrade.

You can learn more about PTAs on Stanford's Admin Guide 3.1.3 Expenditure Accounts (PTAs) or through Stanford's Fingate page about PTA Manager system. The UIT AI Team will not be able to help you find or create a PTA.

Do I always need to provide PTA billing information for the Premium tier?

Yes. A valid PTA is required to purchase the Premium tier.

What does "Project Task Award" refer to on the Add Claude for Education Premium form?

A PTA is a method of labeling and tracking expenditure accounts in the university's financial systems. It consists of three segments: Project (P), Task (T), and Award (A), which help organize and allocate funds for various academic and research initiatives. You enter the corresponding sections into the fields in the request form.

(In the above example, let's use the fake PTA 5555555-000-APIGW. The first section of the PTA is the project, the second is the task, and the last is the award.)

Why are the listed approvers for the PTA not correct?

They are correct. What you are seeing is expected behavior. The approver list for UIT billable services may be different than those listed in the PTA authority or other systems.

The UIT Billable system prioritizes the lower ORG level first. A user with access to a top level org code, would need to request the UIT Billable Service Approver (University) privilege under the specific ORG code to be included in the approvers list. The approvers you see listed when filling out the API request form, will have the "UIT Billable Service Approver" role in Authority Manager for the lower ORG code.

Please see the How to Request Authority for Ordering and Reporting page for more information.

Can I get a refund for my personal subscription when I migrate to the university offering?

Anthropic has said that some paid subscriptions (Premium and Max) will be given a prorated refund when the migration begins. Any usage credits remaining on the account will be refunded by Anthropic.

See the FAQ item titled, "How do I migrate my personal Claude account to a non-Stanford.edu email address?" higher up on this page for more information about the migration instructions.

You will need to work directly with Anthropic support for refunds. Anthropic may not offer refunds for Teams accounts.

Troubleshooting

When signing into Claude, you receive an error message stating: "Please confirm your email. You entered ZZZZZ@stanford.edu, but you are currently logged in as YYYYY@stanford.edu.

Claude compares the email address typed in at the login page against the email attribute the IdP returns in the SAML response. For email aliases, Claude will use the the default reply to email address. If you had previously signed up for Claude with a +address, the system may log you in as that address instead. If either email address is different than your UPN, Claude will display this message, to let you know it will use the default reply to address when authenticating. This should not affect functionality. Press continue and you should be logged into the Stanford University tenant.

When trying to setup a connector to Microsoft 365, you receive an error message stating, "Your administrator has configured the application to block users unless they are specifically granted access to the application.

This is not a Claude error. This is an error in the application to which you are trying to connect. You need to contact the team who manages that application to have them add you to the group who can access that application.

I am not able to setup the Zoom connector. It gives me an error reading, "You cannot authorize Claude MCP Connector".

The Zoom team and ISO are reviewing this connection. They are expected to make a determination on this soon. In the meantime, it cannot be enabled.

When trying to setup the Slack connector, you receive an error message reading, "Unapproved permissions requested." or "Connection Blocked."

This is because the selected Slack workspace does not allow the Claude connector. When you are setting up the connector for Claude and Slack, the process should ask you to select a Slack workspace. Whoever runs the Slack workspace you selected, would need to allow for Claude to connect to their workspace. If they allow it, this connection should go through without issue, but not all teams across campus have done that. If you have multiple Slack workspaces, you can try selecting a different workspace when you setup the connection. Otherwise, you would need to reach out to the administrator of that Slack workspace to allow the connector.

In the Claude Desktop app, the Cowork or Code tabs are greyed out. How can I resolve this?

This is a known bug with the Anthropic app. The Anthropic team is working on resolving this issue.

The application may display an error mentioning a needed feature within Microsoft's Virtual Machine Platform is not available. There are some steps you can take to try to troubleshoot the issue on your own. Please follow the steps below, one at a time:
1) Force quit and restart the app.
2) Sign out of the app and sign back in.
3) Uninstall the application completely, and restart your machine.
4) Try to enable the specified Microsoft Virtual Machine Platform feature on your device.
5) Download the application again and reinstall it.

In Claude for Mac, the Tool options window is missing. How can I resolve this?

This is a known bug with the Anthropic app. The Anthropic team is working on resolving this issue.

In the meantime, you can take to try to troubleshoot the issue on your own. There may be MacOS level permissions preventing the app from loading all UI components correctly. Try the steps below at your own risk.

1) Uninstall the application completely, and restart your machine.
2) Download the application again and reinstall it.
3) After the clean reinstall, open the Terminal and run: "sudo xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Claude.app"