While I have worked on a college campus for over 20 years, I recently became a student myself again after almost two decades. As someone who loves a good deal, you better believe I have been taking advantage of my student status to score discounts with some of my favorite retailers and service providers.

Here are the top 5 discounts every Wisconsin college student should know about if you want to maximize your dollars while enrolled.

Hulu/Spotify Premium/Showtime Bundle – $4.99/month

Yes, you read that right. Students can get all three services for just $4.99 a month. This is a significant cost savings, given that a regular Spotify Premium membership costs $9.99/month. This bundle comes with Hulu’s basic plan, which is supported by ads and usually costs $5.99 a month, with the cost to remove ads bringing the monthly subscription price up to $11.99. To add Showtime to your Hulu subscription, it would normally set you back another $10.99/month. So, total cost savings by taking advantage of the Student Bundle = $21.98/month.

While you can also listen to Spotify for free, the premium membership gives you access to ad-free music, offline listening, and the ability to skip songs you don’t like as many times as you want. Therefore, the upgrade is totally worth it especially for that one low price that gives you all three services!

Headspace Student Plan – $9.99/year

If you have ever wanted to practice daily meditation, or are looking for a sleep aid, this is a great time to try out Headspace. The app is $69.99 per year, but with your student discount, you pay just $9.99 for the annual subscription.

The app offers daily guided meditations, courses to improve your sleep, mindfulness techniques and support, and tools for focus. Their sleep offerings include sleepcasts (basically bedtime stories for all ages), wind down meditations, sleep music and soundscapes to drift off to, and guided exercises to use if you wake up in the middle of the night. They even have a category for kids and parenting, and just added stress relieving workouts, along with playlists curated by the likes of John Legend and Madlib.

If you have ever used the Calm app, it is similar and offered at a much more affordable price when using your student discount.

Pandora Premium Student – $4.99/month

Similar to Hulu, Pandora offers a student subscription to their premium service as well, which includes ad-free music personalized to your tastes, and the ability to search for and play what you want with unlimited skips and offline listening.

If you are not interested in the bundled services option available through Spotify and just want access to A LOT of music, this is a good bet. This is 50% off the regular Pandora Premium price of $9.99/month and you can cancel at any time.

Amazon Prime Student – $6.49/month

Most people already know about the Amazon Prime Student rate, which is ½ off the regular Prime membership price. Remember when it was just $99/year? Yeah, it is not anymore. The cost of a regular Amazon Prime membership has increased to $12.99/month, which amounts to a total of $155.88/year. So, the student price is $77.88 instead. HOWEVER, if you have not tried Prime over the last year, they will give you a 6-month free trial of Amazon Prime Student before they start charging you the monthly fee of $6.49.

Even the 6-month trial is worth taking advantage of if you want access to free two-day shipping, Prime video TV shows and movies, two free Prime Reads e-books per month, and more.

The Prime Student membership does not come with Amazon Music Unlimited, Kindle Unlimited, or Audible memberships. Those are all additional add-ons with varying costs. You can, however, add a Showtime subscription to your Prime Video for $.99/month for one year. It renews at the same $10.99/month regular subscription price as offered through Hulu, however.  

Establish a Wisconsin Limited Liability Company (LLC) as a Student Entrepreneur – FREE

Not the type of student discount you are familiar with I bet. But yes, as of May 1, 2018, you can start and organize a new limited liability company (LLC) in Wisconsin at no cost, provided you are a student enrolled in a post-secondary institution within the State of Wisconsin, are at least 18 years of age, and are the organizer and/or will be a member of the LLC upon its formation.

The filing fee to create an LLC in Wisconsin is typically $130, so this is a big deal. If you are currently a student at a Wisconsin institution of higher education looking to start a new business, now is the time. Please be sure to carefully read the information provided on the State of Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions’ web site, along with all forms that need to be filed, and seek legal advice as needed.

Simply sharing what I found online about starting an LLC in Wisconsin as a Student Entrepreneur does not constitute legal advice and the information included in this post is subject to change at any time. Please see my Disclaimer for more info.

BONUS OFFER: Students can take 10% off any order at Zenni Optical!

I have ordered glasses from Zenni twice now, for a fraction of the price of glasses I’ve found elsewhere, and I’ve been very happy with the results! If you need new glasses, it is totally worth giving Zenni a try. You do need to know or measure your pupillary distance, and have an updated glasses prescription to place an order. Each pair of glasses I purchased from Zenni were less than $200, and came with transitions lenses!

Hopefully you found this list of student discounts helpful as we embark on another (albeit very unusual) school year!

If you are looking for in-person shopping discounts in our area, our friends over at Hilldale have a great list of student discounts available throughout their shopping mall as well.

Enjoy!

Updated 9/3/2021