Gen Z turns to TikTok to find the perfect school. Some college students are cashing in.

The rise of college content creators

As of October 29, there were 2.3 million TikTok videos under the hashtag “college life.” The hashtag has gone viral, with 30.5 billion views.

The popularity of college content on TikTok has introduced a slew of content creators covering their school life.

From her very first day, Helaine Zhao, a Harvard freshman, started posting vlogs about life on campus.

In a video posted in September, she shared her morning routine at college. The video shows her getting out of bed, putting in her contact lenses, picking out clothes, applying make-up, exercising at a gym, and getting breakfast. The video gained over 6 million views.

Zhao, who started posting content in March, has gained over 92,300 followers on TikTok. And while she’s eligible for TikTok’s Creator Rewards Program, which allows creators to monetize their content, she has not yet joined. Still, she occasionally signs paid collaborations with study brands like Notability, a note-taking app. Zhao preferred not to share how much she earns from the sponsorships.

She recalls using the app to research colleges when she was deciding between Stanford, Harvard, and Yale.

“It was definitely a very helpful tool to get to experience these campuses without actually going to them in person,” she said, although she eventually did visit the schools in person during their admitted student days.

One college content creator she followed at the time was Elise Pham. Now in her junior year at Harvard, Pham has more than 155,800 followers.

She added that prospective students had reached out to her to ask questions about school and internships.

“When I was still at Berkeley, there were people who recognized me from the videos. That was a really cool experience hearing how the information that I’ve shared has helped,” she said.

These days, Zhang works as a product marketing manager at a Big Tech company and posts mostly career and financial advice.

In her first year of receiving income as a content creator, Zhang made around $47,000, mostly from sponsorships. This year, her revenue from content creation amounted to a low six-figure number. Zhang provided BI with documentation of her social media income.

An authentic first-person perspective

TikTok can be a useful tool for students to gain extra insight into colleges they are interested in.

Lucie Vágnerová, the cofounder of the higher education consulting firm BKT Education in Brooklyn, advises her students to use social media during their college research.

“You might see a snippet from the cafeteria, people kicking a soccer ball around the quad, or even whether it’s stressful to study in the library,” she told BI. “Just real-life stuff that a college website won’t necessarily tell you.”

Students can get a “vibe check” to see if they can relate to other students and appreciate the school culture, she added.

At the same time, college content can also change how prospective students view a college for the worst, Greg Kaplan, a college advisor, said.

“We have seen students change their school lists based on what they observe about fraternities and sororities and not apply to those schools if they don’t think they will fit in,” said Kaplan, whose company, Kaplan Educational Group, provides college application guidance to around 350 high school students yearly.

TikTok is useful — but it has limitations

Vágnerová said prospective students should use TikTok with a discerning eye.

“As much as I love to see what’s happening with social media creators coming out of campuses, I always tell students, ‘This is one piece of the puzzle; don’t linger anywhere too long,'” she said.

“Look for other social media creators. Look for location tags on Instagram stories. Get a comprehensive picture of a campus or an academic culture rather than just looking at it through the prism of one person,” she added.

And while TikTok can influence students’ perceptions of a school, other factors that students consider before making their decision typically include cost, rankings, and location.

Of the 17 schools he applied to, Fuhrman said the schools he was accepted to included NYU, USC, and California State University. When it came down to his decision, he decided on the University of California, San Diego, because of its reputation, rankings, and cost. Fuhrman, who grew up in San Jose, also toured several schools in person.

Still, he says it was TikTok videos that gave him confidence in his decision.

On the app, he has a collection of saved videos titled “UCSD.” One video shows the beaches of La Jolla: “That kind of made me fall in love with the school,” he said. Another video he saved shows the modern interior of Franklin Antonio Hall — an engineering facility with an auditorium, 100-seat classrooms, and collaborative study space for students. The building opened on campus in 2022.

“I would never have known because every single promotional content for the school just shows a picture of the library,” he said.

“But the school is so much more than that.”

In between studying for a degree in structural engineering, Fuhrman, who has around 3,400 followers, has also joined in on documenting his college life on TikTok.

“I think that inspiring others like me who didn’t really have the school on their radar is my goal, ultimately,” he said.