Amazon Prime has proven to be a helpful tool for students on a limited budget but now this reputation is being called into question after Amazon chief financial officer Thomas Szkutak announced that the $79 annual Prime membership could go up to $99 or $119. Students do receive a 50 percent discount so that would cut the new annual price in half, but it will still be a financial strain on students.

Amazon markets the Amazon Prime membership with three short, simple, and yet enticing perks that help give the company an advantage over rivals such as Netflix. "Free Two-Day Shipping on millions of items," along with "Unlimited instant streaming of 41,000 movies & TV Episodes," and finally "Over 350,000 Kindle titles to borrow for free."

All in all, this will likely boil down to whether or not there are enough customers who would still save money in the end, despite the price increase. It would depend on the breakdown of customers in terms of how much they buy since people can save a great deal of money but only if they use it enough.

In other news, Szkutak also made an announcement during a conference call about other updates for Amazon Prime.

"We have added massive selection and digital content to the service -- Kindle owners lending library, Prime instant video," he said. "It's great value for customers. We see customers love it and we will continue to make that better over time."

Whether they continue to love it is yet to be seen if this price hike does take place with Amazon Prime. According to CNBC, Amazon also announced that international sales only went up 13 percent despite the fact that Wall Street predicted 14 or 15 percent growth.

What do you think about the potential price hike for Amazon Prime? Would you still want to purchase it in the future or is it not worth the money?