What should you do If you can't afford After effects

My niece is in a Video program in NC and her software is provided by the school. She has it on her personal system. (only they did not provide Tk) Check with the school if you are in an imaging program. As a student, maybe you should have put it on your Christmas list... I paid for my niece for her last year of high school. I was happy that her school provided it this year. My two nephews at two different public schools also seem to have the Adobe suite in school. So if they need it, they go to the lab.

There are other applications that provide some of the features that Adobe does. There is a open source imaging software. Apple provides competitive imaging/video software and there are some nice Apps on the Apple App store that are Vector and Image based. I have tried them all. Bottomline Adobe has the best. I like the others but I love the way Adobe works together. You get what you pay for. If you want to work within the field, it is best to use Adobe. If you are doing your own thing... use what works for you. (I am not going to mention the software by name in this forum but a good google search will reveal them)

Honestly with the monthly fee, I am sure even a student can do a one freelance job every couple of months to pay for it and it would be great experience! The cost of the software is well below the cost of a phone service.

That's some pretty big assumptions to think that the reason a student can't afford the $31 dollars a month because they're eating out or hitting Starbucks on a daily basis, you don't know your market. It's not just a few dollars, your student/teacher amount plan of $17, only lasts a year. Do you think Students get a salary from the college after a year? The commercial plan is only $49 a month! That's only $18 more than the student plan in the second year. These agencies make over a hundred $ an hour. If a student is able to work a job it's usually minimum wage and that money goes towards their expenses to live.

I have always used Adobe and have been a big fan. You were there for the artists, designers, and developers. It seems your only interested in being used by agencies.

For the most part, you have a monopoly in this field but hopefully, new software will be developed and we can move away from these $$$ subscriptions.

You can use a trial for 30 days. If you are a student then go to a college lab that has a copy and work on that. At my nieces school, the college provided a copy of CC for the students in her field. Maybe your school does the same. Ask the school. If you really need it and the college does not provide it, then talk to your financial advisor to see if they can get you more support for needed materials. With added support from the school you may be able to afford the student version which is discounted. Good luck.

Don't even think of downloading pirated software of any kind.  You could very well end up with malware which may either bork your computer or steal your personal information.