Dorm on a dime
As they decorate college rooms, students are tested by tighter budgets
STOUGHTON - Under bright fluorescent lighting, amid aisles of textiles, 18-year-old Shane Cronin is embarking on what has become a rite-of-passage for tens of millions of college students in America: dorm shopping. On this day, Cronin's choice is minimalist IKEA. As a freshman at Worcester State College, he's here for the essentials. And while he admits he's not much of a decorator - "I hate clutter," he says - since he'll be living with two other roommates, making his space his own is important.
"I know it's going to be pretty different," he says, as his eyes scan the shelves for a cheap laundry basket. "I won't have my own room for the first time in 12 years, and I don't have the luxury of my own space."
For the latest generation of collegegoers, decorating is the key to making uncharted territory more welcoming, more comforting, and more reflective of the home they left behind, said Ellen Davis, vice president of the National Retail Federation. It's the reason dorm spending stretches into the billions each year, and why major retail chains, such as IKEA, Target, and
But as the economy's nosedive makes headlines, students are feeling the pressure to scrimp and save, where they'd usually splurge.
"Students . . . are needing to make some tough decisions," Davis said. "Instead of completely forgoing some items, college students might be trading down to cheaper versions; instead of spending $30 on a trash can, they're spending $3. They also might be working things out with their roommates ahead of time - deciding to share things, where in the past they might have each had their own set of silverware, plates, or even towels. And they're bringing things from home. The priority is still there for customizing your dorm room, but students are being very creative."
Last year alone, undergraduates spent $5.43 billion on dorm supplies, according to the NRF - about $1.6 billion more than they spent in 2006, and double the amount they spent in 2004. But this year they've spent significantly less - just $4.74 billion.
"[Cost] is the major factor," said Cronin, who passed over a laundry basket beyond the reach of his wallet. "I don't want to buy a ton of expensive stuff. I'm doing my best to bring as much from home as possible."
As students struggle with tightened budgets, retailers are also struggling: to make their products relevant, and financially accessible, at a time when dorm spending is down.
At Dorm Suite Dorm, a fashion house for bedding and accessories, customers can earn money toward their purchases - a full set of bedding costs between $345 and $445 - through the Suite Mates program, designed by owner Sheri Corey. The system works through referrals: One customer sends out a promotional code to friends, who save 10 percent on their bedding. For every purchase a friend makes, the customer who sent the code also gains points that help her save in the end.
"That kind of helps with financial problems" said Corey, a 45-year-old designer from Birmingham, Ala., whose work focused on drapery for nearly 15 years before she got started on dorm decor. She introduced the company about a year ago, after enough parents asked her to design their daughters' college bedrooms. Now, despite the buckling economy, business is blooming, she says.
"It's because these girls are going from wonderfully decorated homes to these dingy rooms," she said. "When I went to school, we didn't have the neat little things that girls have now in dorm rooms to make them so much more comfortable. Mine was very basic. We didn't call our roommates ahead of time and say, 'What are you doing? What colors do you want?' You just came with whatever you had, and each side of the room was your thing."
Major chains are also making an effort to balance students' dorm desires with their financial reality. At www.target.com/college, students can "shop smart" by price brackets: under $200, $100, $60, $40, $20, and even $10. In stores, it's just as easy - all dorm essentials are lumped together in a seasonal department that emerges every autumn, said Joshua Thomas, a spokesman for the company.
"Every year we try to do it better and make it a cleaner experience for our guests," he said.
Despite recent trends in dorm spending, students haven't always envisioned on-campus housing as a sort of blank canvas, Davis said. The back-to-school phenomenon emerged during the last seven to 10 years, she said, as the notion of college became ever-present in the American psyche, and as more young people seemed destined to attend college than ever before.
"It's almost expected that you have a college degree now, pretty much the way that, 30 years ago, it was expected that you have a high school degree," said Jack Levin, a professor of sociology at Northeastern University. "College is a kind of dividing line between the rich and the poor, between those who can expect to have successful careers and those who will take dead-end jobs, and the dorm has played right into that transition. It has become more elaborate, more expensive. Now, it's not just a place to hang your pajamas. It's also intimately reflective of a student's personal identity."
Since the 1960s and '70s, Levin said the whole image of a residence hall has undergone a renovation, and university administrators were at the helm.
"The transition was during the 1990s, when the competition for college students became fierce, and tuition was escalating, as it has almost every year. In order to get excellent students, college administrators decided to spend a lot more money on the dormitories, because they learned that was the critical aspect of the schools in determining the choice that good students were making," he said.
For his part, Cronin said he won't be spending too much on dorm decor. Other than concerts, toiletries, and "beverages," he said he'll keep his costs down.
"I'm going to work on saving a lot more than spending." 