Best Coffee Makers for College Students in 2025
These top-rated drip and single-serve models deliver great coffee and don't require an advanced degree to operate
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If you’re a coffee drinker headed to college this fall, you may be worried about where you’re going to get your morning caffeine fix. The good news is there are a ton of great coffee makers on the market to choose from. But when you’re living in a smaller—not to mention shared—environment like a dorm room, you’ll want a coffee maker that’s both compact and easy to use. Price is a consideration, too, if you’re working with a limited budget or don’t want something pricey in a place where it may get knocked around.
You have a few options when it comes to the type of coffee maker you buy for your dorm. Full-sized drip coffee makers are a great go-to, of course: You can use whatever coffee beans you want, and you can make coffee for yourself or for a crowd. “Full-sized coffee makers can brew a stronger cup and offer more features,” says Ginny Lui, CR’s test engineer for coffee makers. You can choose between models with a carafe and self-serve models, where the brewed coffee is held in a reservoir, and you can dispense it at the push of a button. Both types of drip coffee makers typically take about 10 minutes to brew a full pot—which isn’t very long but may make the difference between being on time for class or a little late.
Single-serve coffee makers that use pods are a great option if you want to brew a cup quickly—and you can even brew it directly into a travel mug to take to class. The pods can get expensive, but you won’t have to deal with leftover coffee or clean a carafe. (The good news is that both coffee grounds and coffee pods are recyclable.)
Below are six coffee makers that stand out in our tests for consistent brewing and simple operation—and they’re all under $100. We’ve grouped them by type and listed them in alphabetical order (meaning they’re not ranked by performance). You can also visit our coffee maker buying guide to get a sense of which features may be most useful to you, and CR members can check out our complete coffee maker ratings of more than 150 models.
Looking for more back-to-school essentials? We’ve also got the lowdown on the best laptops, headphones, and printers, along with the best mattress toppers, and pillows to make that dorm room cozy.
Best Drip Coffee Makers With Carafe
Automatic drip machines are the most popular type of coffee maker: They’re easy to use and can make a lot of coffee at once. You fill a chamber with water, load coffee into a filter basket, and flip the switch. These top-rated models feature automatic shutoff and can be programmed the night before to get your brew started before you even roll out of bed.
The Cuisinart DCC-T20 Touchscreen 14-Cup Programmable coffee maker receives our top scores in brew performance and convenience tests, making it a worthwhile purchase—even though its price tag isn’t anything to sneeze at. But what you’ll get should make up for its heftier cost. The DCC-T20 has a touchscreen that’s easy to use, a carafe that handles well, and the machine takes less than 10 minutes to brew a 14-cup (or 72-ounce) pot if you have other places to be. Plus, it comes with an indicator to let you know when cleaning is needed, so you won’t need to spend any time thinking about it one way or another.
Like the Cuisinart DCC-T20, the Cuisinart PerfecTemp 14 Cup Programmable DCC-3200 isn’t the cheapest possible drip coffee maker, but it’s a tad cheaper and slightly shorter than our other pick, making it better for those tight on space. Its brew performance is excellent, with a carafe that handles well and won’t make messes, and it takes 10 minutes to brew a full, 14-cup pot—a little longer than the DCC-T20. In our tests, we fill the filter almost to the top with grounds, and while some models overflowed in that test, this Cuisinart didn’t. It’s a cinch to operate and clean, too.
Best Self-Serve Drip Coffee Makers
These highly rated self-serve coffee makers work similarly to full-sized drip coffee makers but serve one cup of coffee at a time rather than two or three. These models feature an indicator to tell you when cleaning is needed and an automatic shutoff.
Once your coffee is brewed in the Cuisinart Coffee on Demand DCC-3000, just place your travel mug under the reservoir, push the lever, and fill ’er up. This self-serve machine fills its entire 12-cup reservoir with freshly brewed coffee in 8 minutes, and it earns a top-notch rating for brew performance, though it is a tad pricey. The reservoir is easy to remove and clean. It’s also programmable, so you can set it and have your first cup ready the minute your morning alarm goes off.
![Hamilton Beach BrewStation Summit 4846[4]](https://crdms.images.discountninja.online/c_lfill,w_195,q_auto,f_auto,dpr_1/prod/products/cr/models/114935-coffeemakers-hamiltonbeach-brewstationsummit48464)
In 8 minutes, you can fill a large travel mug from the Hamilton Beach BrewStation Summit 4846[4]. The trade-off? Brew performance isn’t quite as good as that of the Cuisinart above, though this model still earns a solid rating in that test. Its scores for reliability and owner satisfaction, based on our member surveys, also don’t quite reach the level of its competitor. But it costs significantly less and comes with auto-shutoff, a cleaning indicator, and a water reservoir big enough to make 10 cups of joe in one session.
Best Single-Serve Pod Coffee Makers
Single-serve pod coffee makers are super convenient—and, because you can find pods in virtually every style and flavor of coffee—they’ll satisfy every one of your roommates. But the top performers in this category range from sort-of pricey (like the Nespresso Essenza Mini, $180) to really pricey (the Nespresso Creatista Plus, $600). So we focused here on pod coffee makers that offer a tasty cup at a price that won’t require you to go into (more) college-related debt. And here’s a plus: Some single-serve machines accept both pods and loose grounds, giving you more flexibility when it comes to the kind of coffee you want to drink. The best-performing models in this category include an automatic shutoff and a height-adjustable drip tray.
The Bella Dual Brew (17644) is a compact single-serve coffee maker that takes both K-cup coffee pods and loose grounds (it comes with a permanent filter for loose grounds, so you won’t need to buy filters separately). Its brew speed for a first cup of coffee and size consistency were excellent in our tests, and repeat cup brew speed and temperature consistency across cups of coffee were also impressive. Its water reservoir is somewhat small, though, so you’ll have to fill it before you brew each cup of coffee—a little bit of a hassle for a single-serve machine. One downside is that it can only fit mugs up to 4.75 inches tall beneath its spout, so if you have a tall travel mug, you may need to brew coffee into a shorter cup and then transfer it to your travel mug. But at about $36, you can’t beat the price.
The Instant Solo is a single-serve coffee maker that uses K-cup packs. It delivers the first cup of coffee especially quickly, and subsequent cups quickly after that. It also manages to maintain temperatures (and dispense the same amount of coffee) consistently across multiple cups. It’s fairly easy to operate, refill, and clean. It comes with a removable reservoir for your convenience, as well as the aforementioned automatic shutoff and height-adjustable drip tray.
How CR Tests Coffee Makers
For drip coffee makers, we conduct a brew-performance test to measure the brew temperature and contact time—specifically, how long water stays within the brewing sweet spot of 195° F to 205° F. We also evaluate how easy the carafe is to handle and whether it drips while pouring, and we assess how easy the machine is to operate and clean.
For single-serve (pod) coffee makers, we evaluate the temperature consistency and size consistency of individual cups of coffee. We also evaluate the brew speed of the first cup of coffee and subsequent cups. We also score these machines for convenience in terms of operation and cleaning.
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