I like the concept of ‘everybody has to run their own race.’ That’s pretty much the philosophy in our household.
People attend college from all walks of life. Colleges are often fairly diverse places…even if you might not see a bunch of different ethnicities & races on campuses at certain colleges, there’s diversity of backgrounds & experiences anyway. Some students come from great wealth. Some come from comfortably upper middle class families. Some students have to pay for it all themselves and have food insecurity during school breaks.
Reading the tea leaves & looking into my crystal ball, I think that my rising HS senior will end up attending University of Arizona (which us parents are thrilled about!). There are some students attending U of A who you can tell come from $$$$. They’re the ones with the BMWs and Mercedes cars in the parking lots/garages (often from OOS).
Every year in mid-to-late August when it’s freshmen move-in weekend, the Tucson area news stations do reporting of move-in day. There were some…interesting ‘man on the street’ interviews of parents helping their kids move into the dorms.
There was 1 family from in-state. They were pretty middle-of-the-road. The mom talked about how they’d purchased the dorm stuff over several months to spread the cost around over time, and to find & take advantage of good deals on the stuff their student needed. They fit it all into the SUV or minivan they had arrived in. Normal modest amount of stuff. All the regular dorm decoration things you’d expect.
Family #2 was from OOS. They flew on Southwest Airlines & took advantage of the 2 free checked bags policy (which sadly is no more, boo!). The mom had preordered some stuff ahead of time from Walmart and Target for pick up in the local stores near campus. Average total amount of $$ spent (the news station doing the reporting asked).
Family #3 was also from OOS. Flew in a few days prior to move-in day. Stayed at an AirBNB. Mom told the reporter that over the course of the couple of days they’d been there so far, they’d spent over $2000 on buying stuff for their daughter’s dorm room. They purchased what I thought was a lot of extra furniture…I found that to be a little amusing because some of the U of A dorm rooms aren’t all that big!
Will my daughter see girls on campus decked out in $150 lululemon leggings, carry Louis Vitton backpacks & purses, and the like? Absolutely yes. My kid doesn’t give a flying fart about that.
Will my kid temporarily feel bad if some other student makes fun of her for not being into “all the things”? Yes. But she’ll get over it because she’s resilient and she will seek out people who she feels she better connects with. And yeah, she will judge that other student for being a rude butthole.
Should colleges/universities impose $$ limits for decorating one’s living space? No. But they can and they do enforce fire codes & other safety codes that apply to dorms.
When it comes to this sort of thing, I subscribe to the notion of ‘equality of opportunity, not equality of condition.’ There will ALWAYS be somebody in life who has more than you. Somebody you know who’s throwing their $$ around ostentatiously or putting others down for not having as much $$ as them are not people you’d want to spend your valuable time with anyway. So move on and find your crew elsewhere.
Besides, when it comes time to getting your assignments, projects, and tests graded in college, the professors don’t give a rip about your lululemon leggings and expensive backpacks. And they don’t care if you’re driving a $75,000 car that your dad bought you for HS graduation. So if you’ve spent all of the semester partying like a rock star and taking advantage of the extra spending $$ you have, that’s great and fun and all that, but that’s not going to help you pass your classes.