<p>I experienced something very similar back in the dark ages when I was in college. Lovely, friendly, well liked girl was, it turned out, stealing from her friends, mostly jewelry, probably cash, and strangely, some things that were of no value and easily replaced. Her roommate took the biggest hit, naturally, and suspected her and found out by looking in her packed suitcase right before the girl was going home one weekend. The roommate reported her to the dorm authorities, and the girl returned the items. She left school immediately. It was one of those hard life lessons for everyone involved and to this day I don’t know if it was handled correctly. We were all shocked that she would take things from friends. She didn’t have a lot of material things herself (most of us did not) but the girl she stole from had an abundance. Maybe it was too tempting for her to room with this girl, she may have figured the girl would just be able to replace the items. I think there was something deeper, kleptomania or something, because most people do not take things just because someone has something that’s nicer. </p>
<p>I would not call the roommate’s parents. You don’t know them at all, don’t know their relationship with their son. They could be even scarier than their son. I’d write it off as a loss and help son by replacing the money. I wouldn’t expect the school to do much (or the police) in the case of cash that’s stolen. Impossible to say how much and who it belonged to.</p>