The WordPress.com Scholar Plan Is Right here: Give Your Scholars a Website online They Can Stay

As of late at WordCamp US 2026, we’re formally launching WordPress.com Schooling.

At its middle is a loose devoted Scholar Plan, constructed to provide scholars the gear of a pro WordPress.com atmosphere whilst they be informed.

Now, scholars can construct genuine internet sites in a qualified atmosphere that they may be able to stay the use of after the path ends.

We’ve been quietly piloting this for the previous 12 months, and it’s already reached greater than 5,000 lively scholars throughout 27 international locations. Now we’re in a position to open the doorways.

At WordCamp US 2025, Matt Mullenweg closed his keynote with a query: 

How will we give the following technology the most productive gear, so that they don’t have to write down with a borrowed pen?

That line is the entire reason why WordPress.com Schooling exists.

The Scholar Plan: Unfastened respectable WordPress.com gear

Any trainer can follow for his or her magnificence at wp.com/edu and get, for each and every scholar:

• An actual WordPress.com plan: The similar platform thousands and thousands of companies run on. No watered-down “scholar tier,” no limited plugin get admission to.
• A loose area identify: Scholars can sign up a .weblog or .artwork area for free of charge (our two education-eligible TLDs for this preliminary segment). 
• Plugin fortify: Scholars can set up plugins and prolong their websites as a part of their coursework.
• The primary 12 months, totally loose: No bank card required.

This isn’t a stripped-down lecture room model of WordPress.com. The Scholar Plan contains plugin fortify, 6 GB of garage, backups, staging websites, SFTP/SSH, phpMyAdmin, and Studio Sync. Scholars be informed and construct with most of the identical gear they’ll come across running with WordPress professionally.

After 12 months one, renewal is simply $2/month ($24/12 months) — a value that helps to keep the web site on-line and out there lengthy after the path ends.

That closing level issues greater than it would sound. This isn’t a throwaway magnificence venture that disappears when the semester ends. It’s an actual web site, on an actual area, {that a} scholar owns and will lift right into a portfolio, a role software, or their first freelance consumer — for not up to the cost of a espresso a month.

And even supposing a scholar makes a decision to not renew after the primary 12 months, not anything will get deleted. The web site merely drops to a loose WordPress.com plan on a loose subdomain, and each and every web page, submit, remark, and media document the scholar created remains precisely the place it’s, totally intact and on-line.

No countdown timer, no “pay or lose your paintings” ultimatum. The portfolio a scholar spent a semester construction is theirs to stay, whether or not they renew or no longer.

Why we constructed the Scholar Plan for genuine school rooms

Academics let us know the similar demanding situations arise over and over:

Setup takes too lengthy. Developing accounts, configuring websites, troubleshooting get admission to problems — all earlier than the true coursework even begins. WordPress.com handles the infrastructure so you’ll be able to center of attention on instructing.

Scholars lose their paintings when the semester ends. Maximum lecture room gear delete the whole thing as soon as the path closes. Motivated scholars who need to stay construction have nowhere to head. With WordPress.com Schooling, each and every scholar owns their web site and will stay it are living for $2/month — or take their content material with them, anytime.

Now not each and every scholar begins from the similar position. Scholars in under-resourced colleges or international locations continuously face limitations that restrict what they may be able to construct or get admission to on-line.

This program offers each and every scholar the similar professional-grade platform, the similar customized area, and the similar alternative to create an actual internet presence — regardless of the place they’re ranging from.

Making ready scholars for the actual internet 

Schooling methods around the globe are rethinking what virtual literacy manner within the age of AI. 

We expect the solution begins with possession — no longer every other walled-garden device that disappears the instant a subscription lapses, however the open internet itself.

Scholars depart with a website they keep watch over, content material they personal, and sensible WordPress talents constructed at the basics that energy over 40% of the web.

It’s already running: 5,000+ scholars, 27 international locations

WordPress.com Schooling has been working effectively as a pilot program for the previous 12 months.

At IES Luís Seoane in Spain, advertising trainer Joaquín says giving scholars get admission to to WordPress.com from day one allows them to paintings in an actual atmosphere. Greater than 20 of this system’s 30 scholars went directly to internships, and employers have been “stunned via the extent our scholars convey—no longer simply in search engine optimization and SEM technique, however in running with WordPress.”

I really like the ‘eternally’ nature of this. My scholars can construct an actual portfolio that they may be able to stay and use after the path ends.

— Javier, Media Research Instructor, San Telmo Arts Faculty, Spain

Survey effects from pilot educators ascertain this:

• 88.9% mentioned WordPress wisdom, blended with this system, improves their scholars’ employability.
• 81.5% mentioned it improves their scholars’ entrepreneurial capability.

Actual talents, on genuine infrastructure, translating into genuine results — internships, jobs, and the arrogance to release one thing of their very own.

Construction the bridge to the group

WordPress.com Schooling may be a bridge into the broader WordPress group. Past our personal lecture room program, we’re supporting two WordPress.org projects with loose WordPress.com website hosting:

• WordPress Credit is a WordPress Basis program that companions with instructional establishments to have interaction scholars in open supply contributions. We offer loose website hosting to individuals, and 150+ scholars have benefited to this point.
• WordPress Campus Attach is a WordPress.org initiative that brings native WordPress communities into upper schooling establishments via student-led occasions. WordPress.com has subsidized dozens of those occasions with loose website hosting for organizers and attendees.

It’s about transferring scholars from “I’ve a web site” to “I’m a part of a world open supply group” and doing our section to improve the techniques the broader WordPress venture has already constructed.

Carry WordPress.com on your lecture room 

WordPress.com Schooling is greater than loose website hosting. It’s a program that works along educators to organize scholars for the way forward for the open internet, serving to them retain possession in their content material whilst strengthening their employability and entrepreneurial talents.

This contains projects corresponding to AI-assisted web site advent, microcredentials, {and professional} certifications designed to construct sensible talents, validate wisdom, and switch concepts into real-world alternatives.

Educators can follow to convey the Scholar Plan to their categories at wp.com/edu.

When you’re a trainer, division head, or program coordinator who desires your scholars construction genuine, lasting internet sites they may be able to personal and develop — follow nowadays.