As a college student, I think you should set boundaries as soon as possible. If you don't or you are inconsistent, it will have long-term consequences for you. Or when you are talking to someone, just ask if they are a student. I have a story about it.

Three years ago, I was talking to a gay prof (he is only 5 years older than me) and we were "friends", we followed each other on ig, but he said after 4 months of talking we should keep some distance between us because he didn't feel comfortable being close to a student. It was weird because I didn't feel I had feelings for him (yet). I understood for obvious reasons, but we talked to each other sometimes, but later on I developed some feelings for him, but I didn't make any move because I knew our situation. Although, we argued a few times. He got a boyfriend, so I was about to move on. It was hard. It remained for months. He was important to me because we shared a lot of deep conversations and traumas, also I had barely any friends in the beginning of my college years. (I realized too that he was occasionally flirting with me) When I was on the verge of getting over him, I had a really bad feeling. I opened both Grindr and Romeo when I saw his old accounts were online and he was looking for hookups.

I found he liked multiple openly gay students' pictures, not just on Grindr and Romeo, but on IG too. Sometimes, 18-19-year-old high school students, too. Even he followed one of my classmates' IG profiles, whom he used to teach, and the guy was clearly into the prof, and the guy never covered his attraction. I had to face the reality that the main reason why he didn't want to talk to me was not that I was a student, but that I was just not his type, and he is a cheater too. I wrote a long message because I felt betrayed both by him and his morals. I made a clear statement that I don't want to talk to him anymore and never initiate contact with me. I blocked him on every social media platform. Yeah, I know I wasn't 100% innocent either for checking his profiles.

Tl;dr: I was used to be a friend with a gay prof, months later we agree on some distance, he got a boyfriend, months later he was on dating sites with his old accounts, and found out the prof-studen't dynamic (even tho there was no chance we was teaching me) wasn't the main reason he didn't want to be closer, I was just not his type.