Update: Faculty Education Benefits Application denied 5 times

[Mellowws]

UPDATE: 3rd December 2025

Hello everyone again!

I did reach out and submit a ticket to GitHub support following the suggestion made by @calmintp and @davevad93 .

Firstly, it should be noted that if you try to submit a support ticket at GitHub Education program or benefits>Contact us, you are required to select an option for the "Your request" section, however if you pick either of the "Application not approved (student/faculty" options, you will receive a popup notifying you that GitHub no longer does individual manual reviews and directs you to visit the community discussion page.

Therefore I had ended up submitting my ticket under the option "My selected school has incorrect or incomplete information" and described my problem, along with submitting images of my academic verification documents and ID (legal name), and reference to this original post.
However, unfortunately the response I received was the same (from support ticket):

"Please address the following requirements and try again:

Please complete your [GitHub billing information](https://github.com/settings/billing/payment_information) with your full name exactly as it appears in your academic affiliation document. You do not have to add a payment method. You may need to log out and log back in to GitHub before reapplying. If you have only a single legal name, enter it in both the first and last name fields."

I am unsure of what next steps to do, if anyone has any further advice, it would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you

ORIGINAL POST:

Hi everyone,

I am a research assistant with a staff email at a university (email has been verified). I have applied 3 times for educational benefits and it has been denied, all for the same quoted reason:

"Hey Joyce Tien Yee Lo,

Unfortunately, we were unable to verify your academic affiliation based on the information you submitted on Nov 27, 2025 for @Mellowws.

Please complete your GitHub billing information with your full name exactly as it appears in your academic affiliation document. You do not have to add a payment method. You may need to log out and log back in to GitHub before reapplying. If you have only a single legal name, enter it in both the first and last name fields."

However my name is an exact match. I am wondering if it is related to the image of my staff ID card, where in Hong Kong, your surname is printed first, so therefore my staff card says "Lo Joyce Tien Yee". I have tried applying using my personal laptop and phone (for a clearer ID photo).
I would appreciate any advice if I have potentially missed anything. Thank you <3

[calmintp]

@Mellowws One solution is to go on GitHub Education Support, they can manually approve if you politely request: Open a ticket on https://support.github.com/contact
Choose: GitHub Education → GitHub Student Developer Pack → Verification.
Explain your situation briefly and send your docs throughout support, this way you can solve it. They respond fast

if you can mark my answer on "mark as answer" i would be glad. Good luck

[Mellowws]

Thank you for your advice, I have submitted a ticket through GitHub Education Support under the Request Topic of "I am or would like to be a partner for the GitHub Student Developer Pack". I will update this message to inform others of the outcome.

This is helpful, as I have previously attempted to submit a support request under "Application not approved (faculty) which results in the popup notifying you that they no longer do manual reviews of requests and do not allow a support request ticket submission related to this topic.

[davevad93]

Hi @Mellowws,

Make sure to fill in your billing info and GitHub profile with your full name exactly as it appears on your academic transcript. Then log out and log back into GitHub before reapplying, because the application system gets stuck in a loop even after the required information has been updated.

If you still get rejected, submit the application using another device, such as a smartphone or another PC.

If none of the above works, I recommend you contact support by opening a ticket here, select "Other" and explain your problem.