YouTube Launches Student Plans for YouTube Music and YouTube Premium
Google's YouTube is introducing new student plans for YouTube Music and YouTube Premium, giving eligible university and college students discounted access to music, original series and movies.
Student plans are available for YouTube Music Premium for $4.99 (instead of $9.99) and YouTube Premium for $6.99. Students who sign up by 1/31/19 can lock in YouTube Premium at a special rate of just $5.99.
Student plans are currently available to all full-time students at an accredited college or university in the U.S. and will expand to more countries in the future.
In order to sign up for you a YouTube student membership you must be enrolled as a full-time student at a United States Title IV accredited college or university. In addition, you should be verified as a student by SheerID. If you meet all the eligibility requirements for a membership, you will be eligible for up to four years of student membership. You will be required to re-verify your eligibility every year.
More information about eligibility requirements is available here.
Companies like Spotify also offer slightly cheaper plans for those enrolled in a post-secondary school.
YouTube hasn’t disclosed how many subscribers YouTube Premium and YouTube Music have reached since the services launched. The ad-free version of YouTube, however, only garnered 1.5 million subscribers in its first year back in 2016.
YouTube plans to make all future original programming available to users for free with advertising.
Starting next year, YouTube Premium will no longer have exclusive access to original programs, removing one of the main benefits of the subscription offering. YouTube’s paid option will still remove ads from originals as well as all other videos, and it comes with music streaming privileges.
YouTube said its move to make programming free was aimed at satisfying growing international user interest in original programming and advertiser demand to associate with special content.
YouTube Premium costs about $12 a month in the United States.