Find out what gifts people are buying and how much they're spending with these graduation gift spending statistics.
Key Findings
Graduating from high school or college is a big milestone in anyones life.
As all those years of hard work, late nights, essays, exams, and lectures has finally paid off and you're ready to move on to the next stage of your journey.
So when someone we love graduates we want to help them celebrate by buying them a nice gift to mark the occasion.
But this poses the question of what should you get a graduate for their graduation gift? And how much should you spend on it?
So to answer these questions we thought we'd take a look at the latest graduation gift spending statistics to see just what others are buying for their favourite graduates and how much it's costing.
And to do this we analysed surveys from the following retail organisations to get an idea of the general graduation gift shopping trends:
Graduation Gift Spending Highlights
Before we go into more detail on what was in the surveys, here's a Graduation gift spending statistics infographic featuring the key findings.
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How Much Are We Spending On Graduation Gifts?
It was found that a total of $5.1 billion was expected to be spent on high school and college graduation gifts in the United States in 2020 (National Retail Federation).
This figure was down over 7% from the previous years figure of $5.5 billion, maybe due to the fact that only 30% of people were planning to buy graduation gifts compared to 34% the year before.
However, the average expected spend per person on graduation gifts was higher than in previous years, coming in at $112.30 compared to $107.46 in 2019.
And this figure has risen steadily over the years, increasing 25% from the 2010 figure of $89.85.
Men were more likely to spend more on graduation gifts, with an average spend of $119.40 compared to $105.55 for women.
While the highest spenders were in the 45-54 age group, spending an average of $126.55 on graduation gifts.
What Are The Most Popular Graduation Gifts?
The graduation gift survey from the National Retail Federation found that the majority of Americans (51%) were planning to give cash as a graduation gift for high school and college students.
The next most popular choice was gift cards, with 32% planning to give these as gifts.
Clothing/apparel was next up with 16% thinking this was a good idea for a graduation gift, followed by electronics which was considered by 11%.
While 4% said they planned to give a different kind of gift from those previously mentioned.
And 37% of people said they planned to give their graduate a 'well done' card as part of their graduation celebrations.
What Graduation Gifts Do They Actually Want?
So that's what people are planning to buy as gifts for high school and college graduates, but is it what they really want?
Well, according to a 2018 graduation gifts survey from Offers.com we are getting it right by giving cash as a gift.
As 55% of the graduates they surveyed said that some form of financial help such as cash, stocks, or money put into a 401k would be their preferred graduation gift.
21% said they'd love to be treated to a trip, which could account for graduating students that are planning to travel the world or do some backpacking before joining the work force.
While 19% were being extremely hopeful and wanted a car (high school grads, we see you!).
Then there were the 12% that wanted some help paying their rent as they were starting out with their adult life, while 10% wanted an electronical gift, and 8% wanted clothes for future job interviews.
Only 1% of graduates said they didn't want a gift, and 1% chose a different gift option to those previously mentioned.
Rounding Up
Buying a graduation gift to help a high school or college graduate celebrate their achievements is a really nice thing to do.
So I hope you've now got some idea of what kind of gifts graduates want, what people are commonly buying, and how much they're spending, by reading through these graduation gift spending statistics.
And that it helps guide you in finding the perfect gift for a graduate.
With the main takeaway being, just give them the cash!
Sources:
https://www.offers.com/blog/post/graduation-survey/
https://nrf.com/insights/holiday-and-seasonal-trends/graduation/graduation-season-data-center
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