TikTok is reinventing 2004 Facebook with new features for college students
The first thing I remember about joining Facebook is my brother telling me it was for college students only. He had gone off to school and was annoyed to see his little brother on the newfangled social media site.
If you know anything about Facebook's history — or, hell, have even seen The Social Network — then you know it launched in 2004 as a social media site focused on connecting college students. At first, it was limited to Harvard, then it went to other colleges. It made Facebook an online Rolodex of sorts for college kids, complete with lists of interests, groups to join, and contact info.
In just a few years, however, Facebook opened up to everyone and everything changed. Now, in 2025, it seems TikTok is trying to recreate some of that '04 Facebook functionality. It announced a new feature on Tuesday morning called Campus Verification, just in time for the new school year. It makes sense, considering a 2024 Pew Research Center survey found that roughly six-in-ten teens say they use TikTok regularly.
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In a press release, TikTok called it "a new feature that lets students confirm their enrollment, connect with classmates, and turn TikTok into a hub for real-world connections and belonging on campus." In practice, it'll allow students to add their college to their profile, browse the school's page, filter by graduation year, and see which of their peers are most followed.
It'll be a simpler, easier way to 1.) confirm where you go to school and 2.) find others who attend the same college who may have similar interests. Here's a look at what it looks like, via TikTok.
TikTok is rolling out the feature to 6,000 U.S. universities through a partnership with UNiDAYS, which is a student verification platform. The tool should work pretty simply: All you need to do is click "add school" on your TikTok profile and follow the steps.
Obviously, Campus Verification is not exactly like old-school Facebook, but it does provide a lot of the same utility. Everything that's old comes back around.
Tim Marcin is an Associate Editor on the culture team at Mashable, where he mostly digs into the weird parts of the internet. You'll also see some coverage of memes, tech, sports, trends, and the occasional hot take. You can find him on Bluesky (sometimes), Instagram (infrequently), or eating Buffalo wings (as often as possible).
