Our favorite picks include the Instant Pot Duo Plus, a ZZ plant from The Sill, and the Rocketbook Panda Planner, a reusable planner your grad can use year after year to stay organized, no matter what the next phase of their life holds. Here are the best college graduation gifts to show your recent graduate how proud you are. Rather than a traditional pen and paper format, this reusable planner uses a special Frixion pen with erasable ink. You can upload and sync everything to cloud services like Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox, Slack, and more to keep all important events and dates close. To make room for new schedules, you can erase pages with a drop of water and the provided microfiber cloth and start fresh without losing important information. While this planner has a sleek look and offers portability, some may find it difficult to scan notes via the companion Rocketbook mobile app. The Frixion pen also may not write as easily as pen and paper. Still, the convenience and paper-saving technology make this a top gift idea for many graduates.
Portability
It’s very likely your new college grad is either about to move, in the midst of the move, or settling into a new place. (Remember your post-college years? Remember how many times you moved?) So don’t gift your graduate something that’s heavy or extremely fragile; those qualities don’t mix well with someone who needs to move often, and move often on a budget. You wouldn’t want a friend of your grad—who’s likely being paid in beers—in charge of moving around your special gift.
Personalization
While no college grad would turn down cash or gift cards (in fact, no one would turn those down), they’re likely going to get their fair share of cards padded with those. Make your gift a bit more personal, proving how much you know and love them. Whether that’s a handmade reminder of home, a monogrammed laptop tote, a luggage set so they can fly around the world in style, or anything above, that’s up to you.
Why Trust The Spruce?
This roundup was written by Julia Fields a lifestyle writer for The Spruce covering all things surrounding toys, gifts, and the holidays since October 2021. Before that, she covered similar topics including toy reviews, product round-ups, expert-focused articles, and more. Additional research was done by Megan McCarty, a writer for The Spruce and MyDomaine with over 13 years of experience in both print and digital media. She regularly contributes to design-focused outlets such as Architectural Digest, Domino, House & Home, and Hunker.
“For some, this may be a set of books relating to their studies, or something engraved to mark the occasion. In other cases, it may be best to give money—this allows the graduate to put it towards a larger item they may want and, remember, if they can buy something for themselves then they will definitely love the gift,” she says. Expert advice was provided by etiquette tutor Jo Bryant.
