The best high school graduation gifts in 2025

An Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription offers hundreds of games from all periods of Xbox history that can be played on the Xbox or PC; many of them can be streamed to phones and tablets as well. It also includes EA Play, which opens up access to even more games. Perhaps the best part of Xbox Game Pass, though, is that it offers access to first-party Xbox Game Studios titles the day they're released, like Starfield, Forza Motorsport and the just-released Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. — Nathan Ingraham, Deputy Editor

Everyone can appreciate the convenience of food delivery, but all the fees? Ouch. Ramen it is. Give someone a guilt-free dinner or two with this universally practical pick, one of the best gift cards for the person who has everything but their favorite takeout at the press of a button. 

Nobody wants to be left with a dead smartphone, moms included. Having a good portable power bank handy can help avert that catastrophe, and the Anker MagGo Power Bank is our favorite among those at the moment. It’s a Qi2-compatible pack that can attach to an iPhone magnetically and supply a relatively quick 15W charge, no wires needed. In real-world terms, we found it can take an iPhone 15 from near-dead to half-full in about 45 minutes. With a USB-C cable, it can deliver a faster 27W charge.

There’s a nifty display that tells you how much juice is left beyond that, plus a kickstand that makes it easier to prop the phone up on a desk. All of this comes in a half-pound package that’s a little over four inches tall and 0.8 inches thick. Just be aware that this isn’t the best choice for Android devices — if your mom uses one of those, check out our power bank guide for more options. — J.D.

The Space A40 heads up our guide to the best wireless earbuds for under $100 thanks to its impressive noise cancellation, pleasantly warm sound, eight-hour battery life and lightweight fit. There's wireless charging and multipoint support as well, but no wear detection, plus the mics aren't the best for phone calls. 

Having a dedicated sleeve for their laptop can give your grad an extra bit of protection for one of the most important (and expensive) gadgets they have to carry around every day. There are a ton of suitable options here, but we’ve found Tomtoc’s Defender A-13 series to offer a tight yet secure fit, enough protection to fend off scuffs and scratches and enough water resistance to withstand spilled drinks. Plus, it has a pouch for holding accessories. Several colors and sizes are available, and at $30, it’s relatively affordable.

An air fryer is a no-go in many college dorms, but for grads moving into a new apartment, it’s a fast and accessible tool for cooking many smaller meals. Among these, the Instant Pot Vortex Mini is a good option for cramped living spaces that we recommend in our guide to the best air fryers. It’s a two-quart model that takes up very little countertop space, and while it can’t cook a ton of food at once, it can still prepare things like wings, tofu and roasted veggies with minimal fuss. Its controls and pre-programmed settings are all dead simple to operate, and like most air fryers, it’s not a pain to clean. For grads who could use something beyond a microwave, it should make meal time easier. If you’d rather buy something bigger, consider the top pick in our guide, the Instant Vortex Plus.

For keeping warm during the cold winter months, or simply not walking around the dorm barefoot, a set of OluKai slippers will be a great gift to make your grad’s day-to-day more comfortable. The Moloā (for men) and Nohea (for women) both slip over the whole foot easily and have fuzzy, delightfully soft interiors. Both are made from a simple yet attractive leather, with sturdy rubber outsoles that’ll allow your grad to make quick jaunts to the bodega or around campus with little discomfort.

When your grad doesn’t feel like sitting at their actual desk, a lap desk can make working from the couch more comfortable. If nothing else, it’s a more organized solution than having them prop their laptop up on a throw pillow. If you think the graduate in your life could use one of these, the LapGear Designer is a fine choice. Its underside is soft yet stable, while its smooth top surface is easy to clean and large enough to fit a 17-inch laptop. There’s a stop at the bottom that helps keep their stuff from sliding off when the desk is slanted at an angle, as well as an elastic band for holding pens and notepads and a storage slot for phones. The accessory only weighs about two pounds on its own, while a built-in handle makes it easier to carry around.

Belkin’s BoostCharge Pro is a sturdy wireless charger that can refill an iPhone, an Apple Watch and a set of AirPods (or any other wireless earbuds) at the same time. This Qi2 charger can supply a solid (if not class-leading) 15W of power to an iPhone, while its MagSafe-compatible mount makes it all but impossible to align your device incorrectly. It also just looks nice, with a slick metal branch that extends from its base and makes the phone and watch look as if they’re floating in the air. If your giftee is all-in on Apple gear, it should be a stylish yet practical addition to their nightstand.

A meal kit service is a relatively approachable way to get your grad in the habit of cooking for themselves. There are roughly two quintillion meal kit services to choose from these days, few of which are actually bad, and some of which may be better than others depending on your grad’s preferences. If you just want us to pick one, Blue Apron is a particularly no-fuss choice for newbie cooks, with straightforward recipes, various menu options, generally high-quality ingredients and an intuitive website. While none of these services deliver meals on par with a good restaurant, they should still please most tastes.

It’s 2025, so there’s a good chance your grad won’t be subscribing to cable once they get an apartment. If that’s the case, the Apple TV 4K is a speedy and uncomplicated way to get streaming apps on their TV. It runs fast, it’s simple to navigate and it supports all the major apps and HDR formats. Voice searching through the Siri-enabled remote works well, and since this is an Apple product, you can easily AirPlay video from an iPhone or quickly connect a pair of AirPods for private listening. All of this does cost more than cheaper streaming sticks from Roku or Amazon, but it’s also way less annoying about bombarding you with ads — there’ll be a few for Apple’s own content, but that’s it. We named it the top premium option in our guide to the best streaming devices for good reason.

Reading! Sources say that it’s something your grad should continue to do, even when they don’t have a professor forcing their hand. Gifting them a free book or two with a Bookshop.org gift card is a good way to keep them going, or reignite their love of reading for fun. Apart from having a wide selection, the marketplace doles out a percentage of its profits to independent booksellers, so you and your grad can feel a bit better about supporting a good cause (or, if nothing else, a better cause than Amazon’s). It also allows you to order books from one local bookseller and direct the full profit to that specific store alone.

The Hulken bag is a big rolling tote that your grad can use to more comfortably wheel around groceries, laundry or any other large hauls. It’s available in three sizes, and while it’s not exactly cheap, it feels comfortably durable. (Anecdotally, mine has shown little sign of wear after about a year of weekly use.) The bag folds up for tidier storage, and there are a few built-in handles that make it easier to lift up stairs or carry around campus. All told, Hulken says the bag can carry up to 66 pounds. Something like this might be most useful for city dwellers, but if your grad hasn’t done their own laundry and grocery shopping much before, it should take some weight off their shoulders, literally and figuratively.

Your grad probably won’t need them for a few more months, but the Moshi Digits are the rare winter gloves that are both warm and not impossible to use with a smartphone. Their knitted exterior and microfleece lining are sufficiently protective from the cold, while a set of rubber strips make it easier to keep hold of a phone. Typing with the Digits on isn’t as fast as using your bare hands, but it’s responsive enough to pull off brief texts and searches without constant typos. The gloves aren’t perfect: They’ll run tight for those with large hands, and they can be susceptible to loose threads. But if your grad is heading somewhere cold and needs to text on the go, they should help.

The popular Away Carry-On is a stylish and sturdy hard-sided suitcase your grad should appreciate when it’s time to come back home. Its polycarbonate shell is tough but not overly stiff, and it’s available in several bold colors. Its zippers, adjustable handle and fully rotatable wheels all feel substantial. As a 40-liter suitcase, it can fit enough items to last a week or so on the road, plus it comes with a breakaway bag for dirty laundry. Away sells larger models as well, and it backs all of them with lifetime limited warranty.

The Carry-On has been my personal suitcase for several years now, and while it has caught some scuffs over time (like most polycarbonate cases), it hasn’t shown any major signs of degradation after several international trips. You can get luggage with more compartments if efficiency is your main concern, and it’s hard to call this a strong value, but as a gift, the Carry-On should delight any grad who’d like a fashionable and lightweight suitcase.

If you know a YouTube junky, you’ll be their favorite person if you make ads on the platform vanish. A $14/month (or $140 / year) YouTube Premium subscription removes all advertising, but there are a number of other benefits as well. If you're watching on a phone or tablet, you can download basically any video and save it for offline playback. Videos also can play in the background, which means you can switch to other apps without stopping. This comes in handy for picture-in-picture, or if you just want to hear the audio while you switch away to send a text message.

Premium also comes with a subscription to YouTube Music, the company's competitor to Spotify and Apple Music. It's a pretty solid service, and it does a few things that Apple and Spotify can't offer. For example, all of YouTube's music video content lives alongside its standard streaming catalog, which means users can build playlists that combine videos uploaded to YouTube alongside official artist releases. It’s also one of the few music services that lets you upload your own music files so you can access them along with the streaming catalog. For $14, the combination of a better YouTube experience and a full-fledged music streaming app is a pretty good deal. — N.I.