YouTube Music and Premium get special student pricing plans

YouTube has added YouTube Music and YouTube Premium plans targeted at college students. Eligible students receive a discount on subscriptions, offering them an ad-free experience with the plans' extra features and lower rates. The new option better enables the service to compete with the likes of Spotify and other competitors that already offer student discounts.

YouTube Music provides subscribers with access to the platform's various music content, but with the added benefit of offline downloads, the ability to listen to the video in the background, and an ad-free experience. YouTube Premium is slightly more expensive and brings those same features, as well as several others.

YouTube Premium includes ad-free videos in addition to ad-free music, the ability to play any video in the background rather than just music videos, plus any video download for offline playback. The Premium plan also provides access to YouTube Originals content.

YouTube Music ordinarily costs $9.99/month and YouTube Premium costs $11.99/month. Both are steeply discounted for eligible students at $4.99/month and $6.99/month, respectively, though YouTube is offering students the chance to lock in Premium at $5.99/month by signing up before January 13, 2019.

Eligibility is key to getting the discounts, which are limited to students attending an accredited college or university full time in the United States. YouTube plans to expand the special pricing plans to students in other countries at some point, however. Students can find the new plans here.