University of South Carolina extends $3M deal with OpenAI for ChatGPT access
The school doubled its original $1.5 million commitment after student and staff demand outpaced expectations, but not everyone on campus is cheering.
The University of South Carolina has renewed its agreement with OpenAI for a second year, signing a $2.5 million contract to continue providing ChatGPT access across its Columbia campus.
The new agreement is $1 million larger than the university’s initial $1.5 million contract signed in June 2025.
Students, faculty and staff will continue receiving free access to ChatGPT through the university, with greater capacity for complex and computationally demanding work.
Around 25,000 people activated university provided ChatGPT accounts during the first year of the partnership. Approximately two thirds of those users interacted with the platform every week.
Demand was particularly strong among faculty and students using ChatGPT for deeper research tasks, including analyzing large datasets and completing projects involving several stages of work.
USC initially purchased 1 million research credits under its first agreement but ultimately used around 30 million, or 30 times its original allocation.
OpenAI covered more than $1 million in additional usage costs during the first year, according to university officials.
Under the renewed agreement, USC has purchased 40 million credits at a lower cost per credit.
The university plans to monitor consumption more closely through dashboards that track usage by college and notify departments when they approach their limits.
USC became the first university in South Carolina to provide campus wide enterprise access to ChatGPT when the original deal launched.
The university has since incorporated artificial intelligence education into its University 101 curriculum and introduced an undergraduate certificate in Artificial Intelligence Literacy.
It has also developed custom tools including Cocky Scholar, a study assistant built using ChatGPT.
USC said the partnership is intended to support classroom innovation, accelerate research and prepare students for workplaces where artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly common.
The university also cited data security as a benefit of providing institutional accounts rather than asking students and faculty to rely on personal consumer accounts.