Best Gifts for College Students

A pocket-sized 10,000mAh battery pack — roughly two phone charges — with Anker's 18-month warranty.

This is the gift that gets used daily and never gets mentioned, which is a compliment. Around two full phone charges, small enough for a jacket pocket, and nothing to configure. For a student it covers the long gap between a morning lecture and getting back to a socket, and it rescues the evening when the phone is also the bus pass and the door key. Buy the version with the cable they actually use, and check whether their phone charges over USB-C before you wrap it.

Reusable silicone earplugs with interchangeable tips, in a small carry case.

The most under-rated gift on this page. A dorm is loud at the wrong hours and a shared room removes any control over when the lights go off, which makes sleep the scarcest thing in first year. Reusable silicone earplugs with interchangeable tips solve it properly: they are washable, they come in a small case that survives a bag, and unlike foam plugs they do not need replacing every few nights. Give them with no commentary — they are a practical gift, not a hint about the roommate.

An insulated stainless bottle with a lid offering both a straw and a wide sip opening, and a folding carry loop.

A bottle is an obvious gift and it is obvious because it works. The useful detail here is the lid: both a straw and a wide sip opening, so it can be drunk from while walking without unscrewing anything, and insulation that keeps cold water cold through a day in a bag. Students lose bottles, so this is also a gift you can repeat. Choose a plain color if you want it to still be in use in second year.

Bluetooth earbuds with active noise canceling, a charging case and an app for adjusting the sound.

The partner to the earplugs for the waking half of the day. Active noise canceling is what makes a library table, a bus or a kitchen with other people in it usable for work, and the charging case means they survive a day out without a socket. Buy these rather than a premium pair: student earbuds get sat on, left in a lecture hall and lost, and the right amount to spend is the amount you can replace. Mention that the app lets them adjust the sound, because most people never find it.

A pre-seasoned American-made cast iron pan that works on any hob, in the oven and over a fire.

The correct gift the moment they move out of catered halls into a flat with a shared kitchen. A pre-seasoned cast iron pan works on any hob, goes in the oven, and is effectively unbreakable in a kitchen where pans are communal property. It is also the one piece of cookware that gets better with use rather than worse. The thing to pass on: no dishwasher, dry it after washing, and a thin wipe of oil keeps it black. That is the whole maintenance.

A coin-sized tracker that reports its location through the Find My network of nearby Apple devices.

Specific but unusually welcome. First year involves a new set of keys, a new building and a bag that goes to more places in a week than it used to in a month, and a coin-sized tracker turns a lost-keys afternoon into a two-minute search. It reports its location through nearby Apple devices, so it needs an iPhone in the household to be useful — check that before buying, because on an Android phone it is close to pointless. One for a keyring, one in the laptop bag.

The travel version of the AeroPress: a press that brews a strong single cup in under two minutes and packs inside its own mug.

A student kitchen rarely has counter space and never has a coffee machine that works. This brews a strong single cup in under two minutes, needs only hot water, and packs entirely inside its own mug so it can live in a drawer or a backpack. It is also the cheapest route out of buying coffee twice a day, which is a real line in a student budget. Add ground coffee so it is usable the morning after it is unwrapped.

A set of zippered, mesh-topped fabric cubes that divide a suitcase into sections.

Worth the under-$25 slot because of how a student actually lives: they move in, move out for summer, and go home for every holiday with a bag. Zippered mesh-topped cubes turn a suitcase or a duffel into drawers, which is the difference between unpacking and emptying a bag onto a bed. They also work as storage in a room with one wardrobe. A quiet, genuinely practical gift rather than an exciting one.