So you’re about to head back to university or college, or are buying the best earbuds for someone heading to school: time to buy them the cheapest set you can find on Amazon and hope for the best, right?
Wrong. Audio tech isn’t something to cheap out on, especially as different headphones all offer different features – and some of which could prove especially useful in an educational setting.
Good headphones for students could have great noise cancellation to withstand busy libraries, for example, or a long battery life to survive busy course loads (or late-night study sessions) – hey, you can even get AI recording and transcription in earbuds these days, although I felt that set weren’t an ideal fit for this list.
So with that in mind I’ve picked five great sets of earbuds to head back to school with, all ones that I would’ve loved to have back when I was studying.
Each has a useful strength to make them a worthwhile pick, and I’ve also (mostly) avoided options that will cost more than a student budget can handle or picks you’ll have already heard about (you know AirPods exist). I’ve also avoided anything with in-ear AI tools that could facilitate cheating or impede learning – college is for getting smarter, not dumber!
OnePlus Buds 4
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There could be some recency bias here because the OnePlus Buds 4 are very new, but I wanted to include an option that had fantastic noise cancellation and these earbuds immediately sprang to mind.
These relatively affordable buds are phenomenal at wiping out background noise. I took them to a busy gym and couldn’t hear anything, that’s how impressive their Active Noise Cancellation (often written as ANC) is.
Noise cancellation like this can be really useful at school, helping you focus in a noisy library or tune out on the bus after a long day.
The OnePlus Buds 4 also celebrate bass frequencies; I don’t want to make judgements about the kinds of music students listen to, but I’d be surprised if the thumping, crisp and agile bass didn’t complement it.
Price-wise they’re roughly mid-range, so they won’t break the bank, and they’re also really lightweight but with a secure fit – so you won’t go losing them all the time.
Cambridge Audio Melomania A100
Another recent pair of earbuds which we can recommend wholeheartedly for students is the Cambridge Audio Melomania A100. Want proof? When they came out in June we gave them a glowing five-star review (out of five, of course).
These sound absolutely phenomenal, which is what cements them on our best earbuds list, and the presence of Matt Berry as the announcer of your buds’ ANC status and so on will appeal to the few student-aged people who know who he is.
For students (and buyers generally), sound quality isn’t always the most important factor when buying new headphones, but it’s certainly handy. Thankfully the Melomania have loads left to recommend them, including solid ANC and stamina.
The battery life per earbud is better than most other options on this list, or in the earbud market in general. And they’re really light in weight too, removing the risk of earache.
AKG N5
I tried to only include more affordable earbuds in this round-up but I’m going to make one exception, and that’s for the AKG N5. I wanted to pick these due to their really useful feature set.
At their core, the N5 are great-sounding earbuds with solid noise cancellation, a handy equalizer and a range of other useful features. But one feature gives them a nearly-unique functionality that could be really useful for students.
This is that they come with a small USB-C dongle in the case, and plugging these into a device automatically (and, most importantly, temporarily) connects the buds to it.
For example, you could walk to college while listening to music, then when you get there easily connect to your laptop or tablet while working, or get audio from school computers or even borrow a friends’ device to work if you’ve forgotten yours. No endless pairing screens; you just easily connect to a new device.
1MORE Triple Driver In-Ear Headphone
It’s 2025, why have we got wired headphones on our list of the best earbuds for students? Well, for a great reason. Students can lose things, and diddy wireless earbuds are pretty easy to misplace, drop or lose, especially if friends are involved at the end of a long day of studying.
If a wired headphone falls out of your ear, it doesn’t bounce on the pavement and then into a drain or under a vehicle, getting lost forever and requiring a new set of earbuds. It instead hangs from your head and can easily be picked back up. So for longevity’s sake, a set of affordable wired earbuds are really worthwhile.
The 1MORE Triple Driver In-Ear Headphone are our favorite in-ears right now, offering great sound and solid build quality. They’re faintly premium (ie, not cheapies you’d buy online), but that means you’re getting headphones that’ll last, and they’ve also seen plenty of price discounts since they launched years ago).
Huawei FreeArc
Lastly, we’ve got the Huawei FreeArc, which I’ve chosen as an alternative because of their particular design.
You see, the FreeArc are some of the best open earbuds, a form factor which has seen a huge surge in popularity through 2025. These are earbuds which don’t go into your ear, but hover over it, with a sports loop to keep them in place; the point of them is that you can hear background sounds when you’re walking or running in public. Obviously this is going to be really useful if you’re going for a jog around a busy campus or need to hear announcements while you’re heading to class.
I’ve tested loads of these buds and the Huawei FreeArc are the best of the bunch for an easy reason: they sound better than any of the other picks I’ve tested (given their form factor, open-ears don’t often sound amazing).
They’re also not too expensive which is a great thing for people on a student budget, although they’re only on sale in certain countries.
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tom.bedford@futurenet.com (Tom Bedford)
