While playing around with times it takes to educate colonists I discovered something I had not seen posted here: if you have no other specialized units in a city, then training a specialized unit such as an elder statesman costs no additional money!
So I was thinking, for those of you who don't want to create any bells until later in the game consider building University cities (Princeton, Harvard, etc.). As soon as you get an elder statesman found a city with just him. Use him to build up to your university (however long it takes). Then train units in that city and the cost for the statesman is 0 (not 500). I'm assuming this works with all specialized units.
So I was thinking, for those of you who don't want to create any bells until later in the game consider building University cities (Princeton, Harvard, etc.). As soon as you get an elder statesman found a city with just him. Use him to build up to your university (however long it takes). Then train units in that city and the cost for the statesman is 0 (not 500). I'm assuming this works with all specialized units.