Mooching off of CMU

andrewid free stuff!

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Last edited: August 5, 2026
Contributors: Nicholas Marshall, Jesse Li, Violet Connor, Anissa Li

Ask not what you can do for your [university], but what your [university] can do for you!

— JFK, yeah JFK definitely said this

In Person Benefits

  • Pittsburgh Arts Pass — https://www.cmu.edu/idplus/services/artspass.html This is a perk associated directly with your CMU ID; you can present it at the entrance to any of the following locations for free admittance:
    • Carnegie Museum of Art
    • Carnegie Museum of Natural History
    • Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens
    • Carnegie Science Center
    • Heinz History Center
    • Ft. Pitt Museum
    • Andy Warhol Museum
    • The Mattress Factory
    • The National Aviary
  • Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT) Bus Pass With a CMU ID, you can use all of the PRT transportation options throughout the city for free, including the buses, light rail, and inclines!
  • CMU shuttle buses and escort services CMU shuttle buses generally go through residential areas that might be a longer walk from the nearest bus stop, and the escort service is an overnight pickup system. Neither of these are likely to really be helpful your first year, but they’re good to be aware of. The shuttle service stops at many nearby grocery stores which may be useful.
  • Pittsburgh Cultural Trust — https://www.cmu.edu/staff-council/perks/index.html Ignore the fact that this is from the staff council. Groups of CMU students, staff, and/or faculty are all given special rates when purchasing tickets for various arts venues and performance groups belonging to the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. These groups include:
    • Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
    • Pittsburgh Opera
    • Pittsburgh Ballet Theater
    • Pittsburgh CLO
    • Pittsburgh Public Theater
  • AT&T — https://www.cmu.edu/hr/work-life/discounts/wireless.html AT&T offers a 10% off plan for students. Information about using this discount is available on the site linked and does not necessarily require switching plans; if you’re already using AT&T, you might be able to get 10% off of your current plan.
  • Printing Quota Ok this one is more of a shitpost but you have $40 of printing quota per semester, which is really 800 pages of black/white, ignoring the random discounts it gives sometimes. You can print whole books if you so choose.
  • AmTrak Student Discount — https://www.amtrak.com/student-discounts AmTrak has a student discount of 15% (sometimes more) for travel planned in advance.
  • Car Insurance No, we’re not kidding. A lot of car insurance companies offer discounts for students maintaining some certain GPA, usually 3.0. This will vary depending on the insurance company, your driving history, etc., but it’s definitely something to ask about if you drive.
  • ZipCar — https://www.cmu.edu/parking/about/zipcar.html This offer is particularly for students who will be on the Pittsburgh campus, but there are several ZipCars available in the East Campus Garage by Gesling Stadium for those with valid drivers licenses who sign up for accounts. This can be helpful if you need to get somewhere pretty fast.
  • CFA Performances All shows produced by the School of Drama are free for everyone with a CMU ID, and these have a reputation for being some of the highest quality university productions in the world. Similarly, performances by various elements of the School of Music are free to attend, some requiring ID and others being freely open to the public.

Digital Benefits

Free Things

Discounts

  • Spotify Premium + Hulu + Showtime — https://www.spotify.com/us/student/ Spotify Premium plus Hulu and SHOWTIME for only $5 a month is pretty wild.
  • Amazon Prime — https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Student/ Amazon is might be an evil corporation, but six months of free Prime and then half-off forever is a pretty sweet deal
  • Apple Music — Honestly not sure why you’d go for this over the Spotify bundle, but your money is your money. The only URLs to this deal are whole paragraphs long so just use Google like the grown up that you are now
  • Microsoft — https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/store/b/education Free Office-365 Suite is kind of nice for when Google Docs, Slides, etc. just aren’t enough, but the real deal here is on hardware if you need a new laptop or tablet.
  • HP — https://store.hp.com/us/en/cv/hp-education Similar to above, a wide array of discounts on hardware.
  • Apple — https://www.apple.com/us-edu/store Apple is a lot more particular about their sales and they usually aren’t going to give you as large of a discount as the others but they will give you AirPods and other goodies when you buy more expensive items
  • XFinity Streaming — https://xfinityoncampus.com/home You can access a lot of movies and TV shows when on campus.

Miscellany

  • LibKey Nomad Chrome Extension — Brings up a very non-invasive button to access articles directly through JSTOR or other academic and scholarly databases on a wide range of websites as long as CMU Libraries has access to the article.