8 College Graduation Gifts from Parents

College graduation gifts from parents tend to vary from family to family. They also tend to vary from extravagant and memorable to the not-so-splashy ones.

Regardless of the price tag, one thing that holds true with gifts for grads – more and more gift ideas for college graduates from parents are teetering away from the romanticized sentimental presents (LOOK FOR COMMON/TRADITIONAL COLLEGE GRADUATION GIFTS) to the practical.

That’s because the realities of graduating from college are a bit different compared to a few decades ago when you graduated from college. So, you won’t be getting away with taking your  daughter to a fine dining establishment because you couldn’t find other sentimental graduation gifts for your daughter.

Here are a couple of realities young adults endure today after graduating from college. These realities speak to why you should hunt for a practical gift rather than an emotional one.

#1: You’re saddled in Debt after Graduating

The truth is typical graduates come out with debt in the $30,000 neighborhood from college tuition loans. That’s around $7,500 in debt every year for a four-year college diploma. Now, taking a student loan isn’t a bad thing. In most cases, it is an excellent investment. But as you’ll see later, student loans can lead to a crisis as early as within the first year of graduation.

Here’s why.

Not all college majors are created equal.  There are majors that come with a starting salary of $30,000, but others can be at the $20,000 mark. If your son or daughter is lucky enough to get a starting salary of $40,000 after graduating from college, they’re among the lucky ones.

Some students end up in the lower-earning bracket for quite some time before breaking into the big-money bracket. Servicing the student loan then becomes quite the uphill task. It’s like trying to fill a leaky bucket. There’s only so much you can do before giving up.

When these students get college graduation gifts from parents that don’t help them out with their immediate financial problems, or God forbid, a present that sucks their finances dry (like a gasoline thirsty muscle car?), sooner than later, the college grad will be asking to move in back home.

The fact that CNBC reported that salaries for college students with zero to five years of experience are taking subtle dips every year suggests that practical and appropriate college graduation gifts are in demand now more than ever.

At the same time, more and more companies fail to hit their goal in terms of the number of college graduate hires. And this brings us to the next point.

#2:  Getting a Job as a New Graduate is harder than before

Gone are the days when, after graduating from high school, you could land a decent job, start a family, and buy a nice home on the hill. The harsh reality for college graduates today is, their limited experience often means they can go without a job for quite a long time.

Think about it. How many college graduates have you come across waiting tables at your favorite restaurant or mixing cocktails during happy hour? We’ll bet you’ve met a few, and you probably didn’t take a moment to think that might not be their dream jobs.

The sad reality is, the employment market is flooded with graduates. There are so many of them that employers are spoilt for choice. And what happens when a market’s supply exceeds the demand? Nothing good, that’s what happens.

In a market flooded with qualified graduates, employers require at least some experience in the desired position. However, since graduates can only get experience by working, it’s a Catch-22 position. They can’t get a job because they need to be experienced for the job, but the only way they can get that experience is getting employed. It is frustrating. That’s why for the better part of a year after graduating, most people are out of a job. Take this into consideration when thinking of what to give a college graduate.

#3: Even When You Get a Job, Life Doesn’t Get Rosier

Even when you get a job, that’s not a guarantee that life will become any better. While the College Board assures graduates that they’ll have repaid their debt within 12 years after getting a job, that’s not the reality. The Board assumes, incorrectly, that all graduates have an interest of 4.3% on their loan for those 12 years. They also mistakenly assume that graduates will earn enough to repay the loan in a decade.

Well, like most parents, you know life doesn’t work that way. You might have a job today only to be laid off by the next week. So, although your daughter might be graduating with a major that’s likely to land her a job within a year, that doesn’t mean she’s set for life. And since you have the foresight to expect the unexpected, you can give her the benefit of foresight with college graduations gifts for daughters that encourage her to expect the unexpected.

We’re not trying to make the impression that college education isn’t valuable anymore. Far from it. What we’re saying is, it’s difficult to ride on a college degree and be successful. Graduates today have to pull on all their resources to ensure success in life.

And you can help them find their strengths with the following 8 practical and thoughtful gifts for college grads because every parent wants to see their kids prosper in life.