I don’t know who needs to hear this today, but—please stop paying for things that Vanderbilt could be paying for. The university and companies like Amazon and Spotify allow you to take advantage of your “.edu,” offering a number of free subscriptions services and discounts. You know how it goes: the classic “we pay Vanderbilt $80,000 per year” to “they give us a $1 monthly New York Times subscription for free” pipeline.
But in all seriousness, we all know how penny-pinching being a college student can be, and every dollar we can save counts. We at The Hustler don’t gatekeep, so here are some of the free subscription services you can get with your beloved Vanderbilt SSO.
HBO Max
Did someone say “Euphoria”? The “Sex and the City” reboot? “Big Bang Theory”? Some people feel isolated from the pop-culture conversations about these iconic series, probably because they aren’t up for paying the equivalent of one meal swipe ($9.99) per month to purchase HBO Max on top of Netflix and all the other lingering subscriptions they probably forgot about. It’s me, I’m people. Of course, this was until I discovered that Vanderbilt gives us HBO Max, for free. Simply go to the website or download the app to access all the raved-about series and movies. Go to “Log in” and click “Xfinity” as the provider to be taken to the on-campus providers’ section. Happy streaming.
New York Times (NYT)
NYT is one of those subscriptions that charges you legitimately only a dollar per month to read their stuff. Maybe this is just me, but charging one dollar per month makes me less inclined to subscribe than if they charge $10? It feels too silly to take my credit card out for five minutes for a $1 charge. Just make it free at that point, right? As such, I’m convinced free news sources single-handedly hold society on their backs (*cough* YOUR Vanderbilt Hustler). I digress. Log in using your Vanderbilt Gmail, save $12 a year I guess.
Wall Street Journal (WSJ)
Similar to NYT, WSJ charges you $1 per month to read their articles. Now you can save not just $12, but $24 per year. Just in case you have a vendetta against one, or your teacher assigns you a ~current event~ reading on WSJ specifically, now you have both. Voila. Login using your Vanderbilt Gmail.
Financial Times (FT)
Just the name of this website gives me east-coast-investment-banking-finance-bro vibes. A niche demographic, but I know there’s at least one of you econ major business minor Goldman Sachs summer analyst people reading this. Login using Vanderbilt Gmail.
It’s no secret that along with serving up top-tier degrees, Vanderbilt education can come with a whopping side of stress and anxiety. Unlike other Vanderbilt-recommended stress-relievers (like virtual board games), Headspace actually works (I’ve tried it). Headspace provides science-backed meditation tools and offers hundreds of mediation courses and singles. Courses include everything from “self-esteem” to “acceptance” to “managing financial stress” and are designed to help bring you peace with whatever you’re dealing with. Headspace premium is $7.99 per month, but you can get free premium access with your Vanderbilt SSO login.
Although I’m admittedly a sucker for Google Suite, for some reason, Brightspace still has not figured out a way to enable us to upload a Google Doc. And so I need Microsoft Word, Powerpoint and Excel. However, those cost $100 per year—just for me to do some word-processing. I will say, though, that OneNote is my personal favorite computer application. Through the Vanderbilt software store, get Microsoft Office for free. Follow instructions on the software store website.
Canva is great and all, but for any of you who have Adobe Photoshop or Indesign experience in the past, you know some things just simply cannot be done with pre-templated designs. Unfortunately, the magic of Adobe comes out to $76.99 per month, which is, in fact, $74.99 more than Canva per month. Through the same software store website as used for Microsoft office, you can get Adobe Creative Cloud for just $19.99 for being a Vanderbilt student.
Amazon
We’ve all been there—a last-minute flapper dress for a Great Gatsby guest party, a bikini for your Cabo spring break trip, or some accessories for your sorority bid day that you just now remembered you needed. Enter: Amazon Prime. We know her, we love her, but most of us can’t afford her for $12.99 per month (despite being able to afford a $20 10-pack of phone wallets, “just in case”).
While Vanderbilt doesn’t offer anything special here, Jeff Bezos kindly gives students six months of free Amazon Prime. That’s, like, only eight fake email addresses you need to create while you’re at Vanderbilt.
Apple Music and Spotify (+Hulu and Showtime)
Whether Lil Baby at your early-morning Rec workout or white noise in Buttrick for a late-night study session, most students appreciate a good soundtrack at some point in their day. Regardless of whether you’re an Apple Music or Spotify human, being a student benefits you.
Apple Music offers 50% off their normal price of $10 per month, but, despite being an avid Apple Music user myself, I have to admit that Spotify’s deal takes the cake. Spotify offers Premium access while partnering with Hulu and Showtime to give you access to those platforms as well, all for a bundled deal of $4.99 per month.
