YouTube has sliced prices for YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium in half for full-time university students in the U.S.
The platform announced in a blog post today that students at accredited U.S. colleges or universities can now snag its ad-free video streaming service, YouTube Premium, for $6.99 per month (regularly $11.99), and get YouTube Music Premium for $4.99 per month (regularly $9.99). Students who sign up for YouTube Premium by Jan. 1, 2019, will save even more, locking in an early bird monthly price of $5.99.
For those unfamiliar with the services, here’s the rundown: YouTube Premium subscribers get access to YouTube’s slate of original programming, including films and series, and on top of that get to nix ads across the entire platform. Plus, Premium accounts get access to the coveted background listening feature, which allows iOS and Android users to continue to listen YouTube videos even when they switch away from the YouTube app. Without Premium, videos automatically stop when a user switches away from an active window in the app.
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A YouTube Premium subscription actually includes YouTube Music Premium, but for students who only want music, the now $4.99 price includes access to ad-free streaming of music including popular albums, singles, playlists, and more. It also provides access to extra music-related content like behind-the-scenes cuts of music videos, and, like Premium, enables background listening.
This is the first time YouTube has offered Music and Premium discounts to students. Student discounts are common fare on other streaming platforms, like Spotify, which on its own offers students 50% off its ad-free premium service, and together with Hulu offers both services’ entire catalogs for $4.99 per month (the same cost as having Spotify student by itself). And more services are announcing deals for non-students too, now that the holidays are rolling around — Hulu, for one, joined in the festivities with its steepest Cyber Monday discount on record, offering a full year of ad-lite access to its entire streaming library for $11.88.
YouTube says it plans to expand the Premium and Music discounts to students in more countries in the future.
To check out new student plans, go here for YouTube Music Premium, and here for YouTube Premium.
