Even though many services offer students a way to save on the cost, YouTube TV does not offer a student discount. It is currently unclear why, although the cost of live TV is likely to be a factor. While it is possible that a student subscription will become available in the future, until then, students might want to consider sharing a subscription as a way to save on the monthly cost.
A standard YouTube TV subscription costs $64.99 per month for the base plan which opens up access to more than 85 live TV channels. There is also a Spanish Plan which can be subscribed to for $35 per month. With a subscription to either of these base plans, subscribers can add additional premium networks at an additional cost each month.
When it comes to discounts, YouTube TV doesn’t tend to offer any real long-term savings, such as a student discount, when signing up through the website. Instead, and in addition to a free trial, YouTube TV tends to routinely offer short-term savings which are typically applied to the first month or couple of months. These deals and promotions are available to any new subscribers, regardless of whether or not they are a student.
It is currently unclear why YouTube TV doesn’t offer a student discount but the price of live TV may be one of main reasons. All of the main live TV streaming services have encountered multiple price increases over the past few years, and the understanding is that these services are running on fairly small margins in general. Therefore, while a service like YouTube TV may offer a discount to encourage a consumer to start a subscription, these services don’t tend to offer a permanent monthly discount. There are some exceptions to this rule. For example, YouTube TV previously teamed up with T-Mobile to offer a monthly discount on the cost of its live TV plan. However, there’s no equivalent promotion that’s available right now for students.
Of course, this may change in the future. YouTube, in general, is actually a company that does offer discounts to students. For example, both the YouTube Music Premium or YouTube Premium services are available with student-specific membership options that lower the cost. It is possible that YouTube TV might also join this list in the future, but there are no current indications that’s going to happen soon.
Consider sharing a subscription
Although YouTube TV does not offer a student discount, that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to save on the cost of its live TV plan, and one of the easiest is by sharing a subscription. When it comes to account sharing, YouTube TV is actually one of the better services around as a single subscription can be shared with up to 5 other accounts (people) for a total of 6. In theory, this could mean that the cost of a single subscription could be split between six people, significantly lowering the monthly price for each person.
However, before sharing there are some things to be aware of. The most important is that one of those six users will need to be designated as the primary account holder. YouTube TV requires an ‘account manager’ and this person will actually be expected to pay the full amount each month for the subscription. Essentially, it is their subscription. This does mean that, while a subscription can be split between six people, the price itself will need to be paid by one, and the split-cost owed by others collected separately.
Another caveat to be aware of before sharing a subscription is that YouTube TV does have some location restrictions. Similar to other live TV services, YouTube TV requires a location to be set as the ‘Home area’ and this can impact on where and how the service is accessed. For example, while the service can be used on other devices in other homes, YouTube TV expects those devices to routinely ‘check in’ with the home network every so often. This can mean that users in other locations run into issues accessing the service if they are away from the designated home area for long periods of time.
If everyone that an account is being shared with are based in the same home, like students sharing a house, then this is highly unlikely to be an issue, and a great way to save on the cost of a YouTube TV subscription.
YouTube TV student discount, summary
Even though a student discount is available with the YouTube Premium and the YouTube Music Premium services, YouTube TV currently doesn’t offer any discounts that are specific to students. Instead, the live TV service attempts to keep the membership price as low as possible and offers short-term discounts and deals to new customers. Once these short-term promotions come to an end, there are usually no additional ways to save on the cost of YouTube TV each month.
For students that are looking to save on the cost of live TV streaming, then they may want to check out some of the other, cheaper live TV services to see if any of their channel lineups (and prices) better suit their needs. Alternatively, it might be worth considering sharing a YouTube TV subscription with others to help save on the monthly cost. While sharing YouTube TV is easy enough, this option will be best for students looking to split the cost with other students, friends, or family living in the same home.
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