Top 14 Holiday Gift Ideas for College Students

Finding gifts that a college student will actually use

Imagine being in college, and your professor gives you an assignment to be graded. Your old laptop is very slow and keeps lagging. This makes your assignment more complicated and stressful. You head to the library hoping to get some work done, only to find all of them in use. Working on the assignment becomes complicated, and you get stressed. College should be a time to enjoy and blossom into your best, not work under stress. Therefore, the best gift for a college student is a tech gadget like a laptop, tablet, or smartphone. These type of gifts are often pricey, but we're here to help at Back Market where you can find refurbished tech that works like new for up to 70% off compared to new.

Back Market has a team of professional refurbishers to ensure our products are top-notch so you can feel confident that the device will perform stress-free for the college student in your life. All our products also come with free standard shipping, a 12 month warranty, and 30 days to change your mind, so there's really no reason not to save money with a refurbished gift. You'll also get the satisfaction of helping to protect the environment by promoting the reduction of electronic waste.

So if you're looking for that perfect Christmas gift or a gift for any other occasion for a college student, then we have some great gift ideas for you that students will actually use and appreciate.

1. MacBook - an all purpose gift for the student that needs it all

Most college students have almost half their classes online if not all. Students must work on many graded assignments and sometimes the state of their laptops directly influences their GPA.  To be considered a good laptop, it must have high processing speed, a lot of storage, a high RAM capacity, with an up-to-date OS system, among other requirements. MacBooks checks all these boxes and it has the sleek features that students love. It seems like a high price, but it is worth every penny.

Consider getting a MacBook Air 13" with Retina-Core i5 with 128GB  of starage and 8GB of RAM. A new one would have you spend $999 or more, while currently at the Back Market, you get it  for $287 or as low as $166.00.

2. iPhone - for the college student in need of an upgrade

It may just seem like just another overpriced accessory, but we all know how important it is for youth to stay connected with their friends. Almost everything a student does can be made easier by their smartphone and if you know one that is in desparate need of an upgrade, then an iPhone might just be the perfect gift.

You don’t need to overspend on a new iPhone; get an iPhone 11 or 11 Pro refurbished for a phone that’s just as good (if not better) than the newest iPhone 14 but only costs a fraction of the price. You can even find great discounts on newer models like the iPhone 13. If your college student has an aging phone, they’d probably really appreciate getting an iPhone this Christmas.

3. iMac - for the savvy student

With an elegant and minimalistic design, the iMac creates an environment for maximum productivity and focus without taking up too much dorm room space. It has a keyboard and mouse in-built, so you don't need another one. This is a valuable gift for a college student (particularly for vet students and students taking technology courses who need wider display screens). The retina display also allows for comfortable working conditions that are easy on the eyes.

With the iMac, an upgrade is not required for up to 5 years, giving a glitch-free learning period. In addition, it comes with pre-installed software at no extra cost. It also has a great built-in camera and microphone for online classes. There's no doubt that these all-in-one computers offer it all, but the only downside is the price. The iMac is on the pricier side but is worth it as it syncs with all your devices meaning you can access documents quickly. At Back Market, you get to choose a refurbished iMac 21.5 inch with Core i3 3.6GHz, storage of HDD 1 TB, and a RAM of 8GB at 61% less than a new one. Now that is value for money.