YouTube Tries Again to Break Into Education Market With New School Service

YouTube will offer a stripped-down version of its site tailored for schools and colleges, an attempt to get a foothold in the market for digital education tools. 

The video giant plans to license this service, called Player for Education, to education technology companies, which can then filter YouTube’s enormous library with different restrictions. The service won’t run advertisements or serve video recommendations. Initially, YouTube is working with EDpuzzle Inc., Purdue University Global Inc. and Google Classroom, a product from YouTube’s parent, Alphabet Inc.’s Google.

Since the pandemic, Google has pushed deeper into education with its inexpensive Chromebooks and software. By one estimate, global edtech spending is set to rise to $404 billion by 2025. 

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This isn’t YouTube’s first stab at the market. For many years, the platform lobbied classrooms to use its ample educational and how-to videos. But those prior pitches were met with concern over the popular video service’s targeted advertising and abundant non-educational material. 

YouTube said it will give all sales from its new service to creators whose videos play in classrooms for the first two years. Then YouTube will take a commission of sales. The company declined to share how much its new service will cost.

Along with the Player for Education, YouTube is introducing Courses, a feature that will let video creators offer online classes for a fee or free of charge.