Unable to add MPEI academic email due to trade-controls error - Education Support form also broken

[LifeEnj0yer]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Verification Help & Guidance

Hi everyone,

Hello,

I am a current university student at National Research University "Moscow Power Engineering Institute" (MPEI), and I am trying to apply for GitHub Education.

MPEI appears in the university selection list in the GitHub Education application.

However, when I try to add my official academic email address using the @mpei.ru domain to my personal GitHub account, GitHub immediately displays:

"Error adding [my academic email]: Email may be for an entity restricted under U.S. trade controls. Please see the FAQ at https://docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-and-trade-controls for more information."

This happens here:

Settings → Emails → Add email address → enter my academic email → Add

Because the email cannot be added, I cannot complete the academic email verification required by my Education application.

I then tried to contact GitHub Education Support, as recommended by the GitHub Education documentation.

However, I cannot submit a support request because the support form itself appears to contain a technical error.

When I select:

GitHub Education → "I found a technical error"

the form shows:

Category hh-edu-tech-bug is not a valid choice.

At the same time, the "Subject" field remains unavailable, so I cannot enter a subject manually. When I try to submit the form, it also reports:

Subject must be at least 3 characters long.

As a result, the support request cannot be submitted at all.

So currently I have two problems:

1. My official @mpei.ru academic email cannot be added because of the trade-controls error.

2. The GitHub Education Support form does not allow me to submit a request about the technical problem.

I am a currently enrolled student and can provide official proof of enrollment, such as a student ID, transcript, class schedule, or enrollment verification document.

Could someone from GitHub Education please clarify whether students from MPEI can currently be verified for GitHub Education and, if necessary, whether my student status can be verified using official documents instead of the blocked academic email?

I would also appreciate guidance on how to contact Education Support when the support form itself cannot be submitted.

Thank you.

[github-actions[bot]]

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