TikTok’s new “Campus Hub” features college group chats and feeds

TikTok is launching a new “Campus Hub,” the company told TechCrunch in an email on Thursday. The new hub features college-specific group chats and personalized feeds designed to help students stay connected with their campus communities, even while they’re away for the summer.

The new hub builds on the app’s campus verification feature, which launched last August and allows users to add their campus to their TikTok profile and browse the list of students at their school to find and connect with others on campus. The feature is available at over 6,000 universities through TikTok’s partnership with UNiDAYS, a student verification platform that confirms student status.

Once users confirm their student status, they will be able to access their new dedicated Campus Hub.

Students can create and join group conversations with up to 300 classmates. These group chats are exclusive to verified students in the same school. TikTok says these chats can be used to stay in touch, plan meet-ups, or continue conversations during the summer.

While these chats may be useful for the summer, TikTok may also aim to get students to use its app for everyday school communication, such as class or club discussions that typically take place on other platforms like Discord, Facebook Messenger, or Instagram.

As for the new college feeds, users will see a personalized feed that displays a mix of content posted by verified students and content related to their university. TikTok says these feeds will allow students to stay connected to campus life, trends, and updates wherever they are.

The new features are reminiscent of the early days of Facebook, when the platform was built entirely around college campuses and required people to register with a valid “.edu” email address in order to connect with classmates and meet people at their university.

It should be noted that TikTok is not the only social media giant seeking to make it easier for college students to communicate with each other. Meta-owned Instagram rolled out a feature last year that is almost identical to TikTok’s campus verification feature, as it also allows students in the United States to add their college or university to their profile banner and browse the list of students at their school.