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Have you ever had a life-changing college teacher? 

I did. I had a tough time in high school and I wasn’t the kind of kid that teachers liked. My work was always late, always crumpled, always written in the wrong color pen. I was generally interested in what they had to teach me, but I wasn’t always able to do the work in the way they wanted it done. 

(Years later, I would realize that this was a form of executive dysfunction! But to my teachers, I was disobedient and uncooperative.) 

I didn’t feel very good about myself in school, for years. 

During my sophomore year of college, I had an English professor who saw me differently. Even though I was still a little sloppy and disorganized, he was able to see my curiosity and the quality of my work. He encouraged me, and that encouragement meant so much to me. 

I won’t say that I suddenly magically got organized and turned my life around. I’m still disorganized, fifteen years later! 

But that support and encouragement was like rocket fuel – I worked harder in that class than I had ever worked before, and I wrote and wrote and wrote for that class.  When the semester was over I changed my major to stay in that English department. 

It wasn’t just about the teaching, though he was a great teacher. It was about how the class improved my self-esteem. I was able to access a different part of myself because I was finally able to learn in a way that didn’t make me feel guilty or inferior. 

And years later, when I was a college TA and now as a high school English teacher, I strive to be that teacher for every kid who comes into my room. 

I hope every single person who reads this post has a teacher like this during their college years. If you have, and you’re looking for the best gifts for college teachers who have changed your life, read on!

Should I get a gift for my college professor?

You can, but you don’t have to! 

It’s not expected to give a gift to your college teachers in the US. Here, end of year teacher gifts are very common in elementary school, typical but not expected in high school, and fairly uncommon in college. In my experience as a TA while I was a graduate student, international students from certain countries tend to bring gifts. But in the United States, it’s not an expected part of our culture.

When I was a TA with 40 students per semester, I probably got 5 thank you cards or emails and 1-2 small gifts each semester. So it’s not expected or mandatory, but it’s not so unusual that your teacher will think it’s weird. Gifts for college teachers are a really nice gesture if you want to give them.

Is it ethical to give a college professor a gift? 

Sometimes students will ask if they’re allowed to give their college professor a gift. They’re worried it will seem like they are trying to bribe the professor to give them a better grade. 

First: it’s not against the rules to give your professor a gift at any time in the semester. 

As far as being worried about accusations of bribery: if you have a B or higher, give them the gift whenever. There is no reason to worry about being accused of trying to curry favor with the teacher. 

If you struggled in the class, or you have a disciplinary record at the college, or you are very worried about the accusation of bribery, consider waiting until grades have been submitted to give your teacher the gift. That way, no one can say that your grade was influenced by the gift. 

It isn’t always possible for students to wait until the grades are submitted to give their professor a gift, depending on when they are leaving for break. And honestly: once you’ve been teaching for a while, you get pretty good at knowing the difference between a kid who’s appreciative and a kid who’s trying to bribe. 

(Bribery generally doesn’t work, by the way!)

Similarly: you can get a gift for a professor who you’ll probably have again in the future, or even who you are enrolled with for the next semester. Your professor is extremely unlikely to be accused of accepting bribes. 

So I do think most worries about appearing to be “bribing” a professor or TA are overstated. If the gift is small, and it should be, don’t overthink it. 

The best teacher gifts for college instructors are FREE

Cute little physical gifts for college teachers are kind and thoughtful. But if your teacher is under the age of 40, the best gift you can give them is an email.

I know that doesn’t sound fun, but hear me out. (We’ll talk about physical gifts in this post too!)

If your teacher is under the age of 40, they’re probably one of the following: 

• a TA (which means they are either an older college student or a graduate student)
• an assistant professor (which means that they are in the very beginning of their college teaching career, typically their first seven years, and don’t have tenure yet) 
• an associate professor (which means they have tenure, but there’s an additional promotion that they still need to get)
• or an adjunct, who might not have a PhD and who needs to keep their reputation up to get their contract renewed every school year. Adjuncts can actually be any age.

There are a few other categories of college teacher like a post-doc, but these four are the big ones. 

The biggest, kindest, most helpful thing that you can do for these people if they were a great teacher to you is to send an email to their department chair saying how great they were. The department chair is the “head” of that department or the person in charge of it.

(You can find the department chair email by going to your school’s website and finding the page for that department. Sometimes the chair’s email is directly on that page, and sometimes you need to click ‘faculty’ and see who has ‘department chair’ listed under their name.)

For people in the beginning of their teacher career who still need to get promoted, these emails go into their file. When it’s time for them to get promoted, your email will help them see how strong this professor is. 

When I was a TA, a student sent an email about me to my department chair that included the sentence, “this was the most interesting class I have ever taken”. I never saw the rest of the email, but that sentence popped up again and again in my annual reviews, in my recommendation letters to other graduate programs, and in the recommendation letter the chair wrote for the job I have now. 

She may not know it, but that student really helped me in my career. 

If you loved your professor and they’re in the beginning of their career, consider sending an email to their department chair. You can copy the professor on the email if you want to, or send them a separate traditional thank you card. 

The best way to help them is to describe their teaching and how it helped you. If they made time for you in office hours, say so. If they explained things in a way that made you finally understand them, say so. If they are your favorite educator you’ve ever had, say that. 

The more specific you can be to what they teach and how they teach it, the more they benefit. 

(If you have an older professor who made a big difference for you – go ahead and send the email anyway!) 

If you want to get a physical gift in addition to helping them out professionally, read on! 

How much should a college professor gift cost? 

An expensive gift for college teachers really isn’t appropriate, even if you have the money to spend. The gift is just supposed to show that you thought of them and appreciated the work that they did in teaching you. It would never be appropriate for a professor to give you a gift back, so an expensive gift puts the teacher in the awkward position of sort of “owing” you something. 

Worst case scenario if a gift is too expensive is that you end up in the awkward situation of the professor deciding that they have to return it to you! And that will be really uncomfortable for you both and mess up the good vibes you were trying to give off. 

Plan on no more than $30 for the gift if it’s from you alone. If there’s something more expensive that you want to buy, see if you can get a classmate or group to go in on it with you. (A group gift is a really nice gesture for your professor because it says, not only do we all love you, we sit around and talk about how much we love you.)

I would say that the only exception to this is if your professor wrote a recommendation for you for a job or grad school. You might consider $50, then. But it still wouldn’t be appropriate to go over the top.

Thoughtful gift ideas for your college or university professor 

I’ve got a whole list of great gift ideas for college teachers below with links, but before you scroll, think about what you’ve seen your teacher use. 

A teacher friend, back when she was an education major, got her math professor a pack of dry erase markers. He was always showing up to class without them, and it had become a joke between him and the students. 

He was so happy with them! A perfect gift is a personal gift, and while it may not be the most exciting, you know school supplies are appropriate gifts and that they’re going to get put to good use. 

If you can’t think of a supply that your teacher might need, you can always opt for an Amazon gift card and leave it up to them.

Beyond that: 

Coffee gifts

One of the gifts I receive most often as a teacher is a coffee mug, and I am a big coffee drinker. Especially if your class is in the morning, you probably have a sense of whether your teacher comes to class with coffee, tea, or just a water bottle. 

If you want to personalize a travel mug, the cheapest way by far is to do it through Yeti rather than paying a significant extra cost on Etsy. These travel tumbler mugs come in a zillion different colors and last forever. At the time I’m writing this post, customization of these mugs is free!

The professor’s name is an obvious choice for this, but you might also think about something relevant to their subject. Customizing with an oxygen molecule, an equation, or another reference to the class is also a really meaningful gift. 

(I have a coffee mug from a group of students years ago that just says “Act 4, Scene 6”, a reference to our class’s reading of Hamlet. It was so silly but such a funny and memorable joke. The mug is probably my favorite gift ever because it was such a personal touch.)

If the recipient is a teaching assistant or TA, you might also personalize with “future teacher” or “future Ph.D” or “the future Dr. (whoever)”. This is a really great way to motivate and support them — they’re a student too! 

There are also lots and lots of teacher-specific mugs out there that you can buy premade. These can easily be picked up on Etsy or Amazon, or even at Target. Depending on the person’s vibe, you can go for 

You Can’t Spell Teacher Without Tea

or 

Whatever way you go, a Starbucks gift card or box of teabags, or something related to one of the campus coffee shops, are a great addition to a coffee themed gift for college teachers. 

Photo gifts

Students often ask about photo gifts, and honestly, they probably aren’t one of the best gift ideas. Photo gifts are very common at the lower levels like elementary and middle school but less common in college. Your professor is much less likely to hang up photos of their college students than your elementary school teacher was. Of course, every professor is different and some departments, especially education in my experience, will absolutely hang photos. But, honestly, most won’t. 

An exception to this, in my opinion, is group photos. If you were a club, team, honor society, or other group of students that lasted past the semester, a group photo might mean a lot to that advising professor. Or, if your class just felt special (you know how sometimes a class just feels like everyone gets along?!) you might want to take a group photo on the last day and send your professor a copy. Those classes with great vibes are as special to us as they are to you!

Or, if you’ve just graduated and you took a photo with your favorite professor at graduation, you can email her a copy or mail a physical photo with a note saying how much you appreciated her. 

Self-care gifts

Opting for self-care gifts for your professor absolutely depends on the professor and what you know about them. 

If you’ve run into your TA at the nail salon, by all means get her a gift certificate for a manicure. That’s the best kind of gift because you know she’s going to love it and use it. 

But if you don’t have a ton of information about their personal life, guessing can be tough. They may or may not even live close to campus. 

But if you can personalize it, a self-care gift can be super thoughtful. By the end of the semester, your professors are ready for a break as well!

Did you find the right gift for your professor in this post? Let me know in the comments, or pin this post for next semester! 

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