This is in The NY Times…
Tuition: $9,400. Dorm Room Interior Designer: $10,000?
And here I was thinking that the trip to Ikea was expensive.
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Wow. My sons’ dorm room decor could best be described as latter day prison cell . . .
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Are you implying our rip cord bedspreads, shower curtains for the closets,an old army trunk and magazine pictures taped to the walls was not the stuff made of dreams we thought it was?
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Sad and entitled comes to mind…
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I don’t think we spent much of anything on either of our kids. They both wanted to take things from home…so they shopped here for free first.
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If you do a search for “southern dorm room designer” and look at pictures, some of those dorm rooms are nicer than my primary bedroom!
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My first dorm room was furnished courtesy of the linen closet and the basement storage area. Skimom reckoned that she needed new towels more than I did. 
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Crazy town. No shortage of people willing to pay the dorm room designers though 
This quote (the bolded part) sums up what’s wrong with a segment of America’s next generation:
When she began her freshman year at the University of Mississippi, where the tuition is $9,400 for in-state students, Lesley Lachman was taken aback by the dorm rooms, which she described as “completely not doable to live-in.”
Of course it’s livable 
Hopefully this young lady has lofty career goals for herself or is able to find a partner that can support her elevated lifestyle.
I also chuckle when the article references “parents” who are willing to pay for these dorm room designers - you know no dads are happily signing off on this 
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Not true about the dads… they are also willingly signing on to the professional hair styling during rush week, the constant eyelash/nail upkeep for D’s who get into the “top” sororities, etc.
The mom’s aren’t operating this way in a vacuum… look at the selfies they are posting- tanning salons, medical grade teeth whitening, etc. The arms race is a family affair…
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There was an article in People this week on the same topic:
My D and I have fun looking at the photos posted in the FB group mentioned in the article every fall, but thankfully “Southern dorm design culture” isn’t a thing at her school. Many schools are strict on what can be hung on walls for fire safety purposes, so forget curtains, peel and stick wallpaper and neon name signs.
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Literally - my son spent fall break in Philadelphia sophomore year and visited the prison where Al Capone was held. Lots of memorabilia!
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Actually DD and her roommate made something very similar themselves, obviously not for $5k per student. I think they managed with $500 for the room including everything. Sorry can’t post pictures due to privacy.
They actually did better in my opinion. You had to see floating shelves with marshmallow toys on them and family pictures with fake leaves plus natural plants.
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This trend really just proves Veblen’s point (and others of course). Parents across the country whine about the high cost of college, “why can’t they fire a few administrators and bring tuition down” while simultaneously complaining if a campus doesn’t have botanical garden level landscaping, mesclun on the salad bar at lunch, or are so behind the times that they prohibit obvious fire hazards (flammable bed sheets staple-gunned across vents and smoke detectors because cinder block walls are “ugly”).
I don’t get it.
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My S22 just FaceTimed me to show me he unpacked and set up room. Same bedding and posters since freshman year. He added 2 strands of white lights on black cord, and a black framed mirror - $15. I did purchase him a storage cart with bins for $38. It looks very calming and comfy.
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“She tells PEOPLE she started plotting her only daughter’s first home-away-from-home a full year before move-in.”
This is what’s wrong. It’s her daughters first “home away from home” and instead of her kid figuring it out within a small budget and doing her own thing her mom took over. I had a friend who did the same for her daughter and her three roommates (apartment not dorm). She picked everything from furniture to window treatments. Guess anything less than her perfect taste wasn’t going to be good enough. How is a kid ever going to learn what THEY like or need if everything is bought, paid for and decided on by mom?
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Not any dads I know in any circles anywhere, but I suppose there are some
Also interesting that the article and others like it, always mention the cost of tuition but conveniently leave out R&B, books, etc. - which in many cases, is the bulk of the spend. So the $9k in the in-state tuition noted in the article and the $9k dorm decor cost is on top of whatever the R&B costs are. To their credit, most successfully sell the dorm stuff to the eager beavers in the next freshman class so they do recoup some of the cost.
My senior daughter is also using all her freshman year stuff (some of which was her older sister’s freshman year stuff from 2013/2014) along with some pillows/blankets from her bed at home. I’ve tried over the years to include some DIY decor but she’s a minimalist - just some simple picture collages and fairy lights and she’s good. She also doesn’t want to have to pack and move a ton of stuff.
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After reading those articles:
And I hate to sound snarky, but many of the rooms pictured looked like variations on a very similar theme (i.e. white comforter with a folded throw on the bottom with a customized headboard and a low seating area in between the two beds). I realize that shared dorm rooms will have many common features and little flexibility in space, but the one kid’s idea of a rainforest bedroom made me wish that a picture of that room had been shown.
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If any of the dads you know have wives who spend hours a week on “personal grooming” which involves professionals-- facials, eyelashes, manicures, highlights, teeth whitening, blowouts/keratin treatments, etc. OR has had a professionally designed “man cave”, home office, or “viewing/nedia room” then “the gentleman doth protest too much” if he is unaware of what these things cost and how much effort is involved to maintain.
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I just decorated my sons entire 1 bedroom apartment with stuff we had around the house or thrifted, free, and garage sale items for way less than $500.
Reminds me that I am not in the same tax bracket. 
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It’s not just tax bracket, though. It’s also your belief system. I’d never spend $10k on a fancy dorm get up even though we could. Same goes for apartment furnishings when the time comes. We have lots of decent hand me downs they’ll be welcome to but new stuff will be on them. I don’t feel my kids are entitled to live like they are established high earners. They should live in a manner they can afford, not what I can afford.
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