Back to School Shopping with Student Discounts

Do you ever use student discounts? I completely forgot that college students are eligible for extra deals at some stores, and I wish I had been more aware of this back when I was a freshman—I’m sure I would have saved a ton of money! But better late than never, right? I have one last year to take advantage of student discounts, so I’ve spent the last couple of hours scouring the internet for the best college student deals. I wanted to share my findings for today’s back-to-school-themed post—happy (discount) shopping!

The best student discount website I could find is called UNiDAYS. It’s kind of like Groupon in the sense that you sign up and instantly have access to lots of deals—sounds kind of sketchy, I know. But as it turns out, lots of clothing retailers offer student discounts and will either have a banner about it in their stores or a link at the bottom of their websites (or both). More often than not, those retailers’ student discounts are affiliated with UNiDAYS. I assume this is because UNiDAYS makes it easy to verify your student status, rather than each cashier having to confirm with a student ID card.

It’s really easy to set up an account, and to confirm your student status, you either have to register with an .edu email or sign into your student portal. I typed in my university’s name, and then it redirected me to my university’s login page to prove that I am a student there. They also ask for your year and length of program. Super simple! You do have to be U.S.-based and over the age of 16, but it sounds like even high schoolers can access these discounts if they have the right kind of email (it’s worth a try). Grad students are also eligible.

I was surprised by how many stores are affiliated with UNiDAYS. While it doesn’t have all of my favorite retailers (most notably, Francesca’s does not offer student discounts), the following list is just a handful of great deals you can get with a UNiDAYS account:

• 20% off at American Eagle and Aerie
• 17% off at Forever 21
• 15% off at Cotton On
• 15% off at H&M
• 15% off at Kate Spade
• 15% off at Levi’s
• 15% off at Oh Polly
• 15% off at SheIn
• 10% off at Asos
• 10% off at Hollister
• 10% off at Ugg
• 5% off at Express

Those are only some of the discounts available and only fashion-related deals—UNiDAYS also has student discounts for certain beauty, fitness, lifestyle, and tech brands. They even offer 15% off on some Hello Fresh boxes! So what’s the catch? Well, a lot of the discounts only apply for full price items and cannot be combined with other offers… so if you’re anything like me (and only shop when there are sales), then these discounts might not be that helpful.

However, just this morning, I placed an order on American Eagle’s website because lots of pieces I have been wanting are finally on sale. Even though everything was already discounted, the 20% off student discount still applied to some of the pieces—I saved 10 bucks! The moral of the story is that it’s still worth trying the UNiDAYS discounts, even if they say they only apply under certain circumstances.

Here are a few other, miscellaneous student discounts I found that are not affiliated with UNiDAYS:

• 15% off a full-priced order in stores at Banana Republic if you present your student ID
• 15% off at PBTeen with a valid student ID or .edu address (they have such cute stuff but it’s usually so expensive)
• 10% off at participating Dairy Queens if you present your student ID—I need to find out if the one near my school does this ASAP

To be honest, I only included the student discounts that were most interesting to me in this blog post—hence the odd assortment. But I highly encourage you to research some of your favorite stores and restaurants to see if they offer any student discounts. I can’t believe I have wasted three years not redeeming these deals, but I know better now! And hopefully you know to ask for student discounts, too (unless you already have been, in which case, props to you.)

It seemed fitting that I wear my ‘first day of school’ skirt for today’s blog post, although if you read my weekly recap from two weeks ago, you know it has a giant hole in the back now—I gotta stitch that up before I move back to Denver for the fall. I thought the olive green paired really nicely with my black floral tank, and this citrine flower necklace was the perfect way to fill the empty space around my neck. The jewelry designer is Saucy Jewelry and I absolutely LOVE her pieces! They are gorgeous and worth every penny. The designer usually participates in an art fair here in Boise each summer, so my mom and I love to check out her new designs every year. I have a necklace, two rings, and an affirmation cuff from her—the cuff has my favorite quote engraved on the inside: “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing” –Helen Keller.

Thanks for stopping by the blog today! I have been working on my site redesign (finally) and am really excited by how it’s looking. However, WordPress keeps glitching the heck out and publishing things that I am not authorizing, so if my site looks weird in the next few days… that’s why.

And feel free to join this week’s linkup! I completely forgot to include it when I originally published this post, and thankfully a follower reminded me. Hope you have a great rest of your week.

-Grace

Floral Tank: Cabi, $79, last worn here | Olive Skirt: Down East Style, $30, last worn here | Brown Sandals: DSW, $45, last worn here | Purse: Francesca’s, $20, last worn here