Everyone these days has a cell phone, in fact if you’re a student you’re much more likely to have a mobile phone than a landline.  So if you’ve been searching for ways to get student discounts on your phone bill and data plan, you’re in luck if you use AT&T and attend a university that offers a student discount through AT&T.

Here’s how you can find out whether or not your college offers a student discount for AT&T.  Visit the AT&T Premier Enterprise Portal and on the right hand side you will see a form textbox where you can enter your school email address to find out if AT&T offers a discount to your school, and if they do then receive an email with a link to your school’s discount portal.

If you’re school does indeed have a relationship with AT&T then a page will be shown indicating the success and you will then receive the email from AT&T.  You can enjoy anywhere from a 3% - 20% savings on both AT&T products and plans.  For instance, if you attend University of Southern California the discount rate is 15%.  If you have an existing AT&T account you can simply associate this student discount to your existing plan and it will take effect with your next bill.  If you do not have an AT&T wireless plan you can of course open a new account and start a plan.

If you’re school is not part of the AT&T discount plan and you have a job then it is possible that AT&T offers a discount through your employer as well, so check with your work’s HR department or use the AT&T Premier Enterprise Portal to lookup whether there is a discount or not.

One question I’ve seen a lot is whether the iPhone has a student discount through AT&T.  The answer is that the old iPhone has no discount on the phone or rate plan, but with the new 3G iPhone you can get a discount on the rate plan, but not on the actual hardware.  Since the wireless rate and data plan on a 3G iPhone is so much a 15% discount will save you a lot of money in the course of a year!

Another piece of information worth mentioning is that this AT&T student discount / employee discount is often called a FAN discount by AT&T.  FAN stands for Foundation Account Number, which basically means that AT&T offers a discount to a foundation (company or school) and you can associate that “Foundation” account to your personal account and enjoy the discount.

Happy savings on your AT&T phone bills!