College students spent $87 billion per year on dorm decoration

[Cameron]

Tuition: $9,400. Dorm Room Interior Designer: $10,000?

Some students arrive on campus expecting certain comforts. And they, or their parents, are willing to pay thousands to settle in.

www.nytimes.com

Sorry for the paywall, but the most important stat from the article is in the title.

This makes me a little less sympathetic to complaints about the college debt crisis.

 

[Bok Tuklo]

This makes me a little less sympathetic to complaints about the college debt crisis.

That was probably the article’s purpose.

 

[Callen]

I can't help but think is a small number of wealthy students who aren't taking out loans

 

[Cameron]

That was probably the article’s purpose.

View attachment 67529867

Didn’t think that was the jam of the NYT lifestyle section, but maybe.

 

[Jessie C]

I'm guessing the students who spend big bucks to make their dorms livable do not quality for loan forgiveness. In 2021 when my 2 g-girls entered college, they chose to live in an off-campus apartment with 2 other kids; each would pay 800.00 a month. This place was uninhabitable, worse than a tenement- filthy dirty, cabinet doors in the kitchen missing, broken faucets, thread bare broken furnishings, holes in the dirty carpeting and tumbleweeds of nasty hair all over the floor. Their dad took one look around and said HELL NO. Their dad paid the security fees to put them up in a house that they share with 2 other girls for the same amount of money. They have sparse furnishings, but it doesn't matter, between school and working, they're hardly ever there.

 

[Exquisitor]

Well, Hell, give them a tax cut.

 

[Noodlegawd]

Tuition: $9,400. Dorm Room Interior Designer: $10,000?

Some students arrive on campus expecting certain comforts. And they, or their parents, are willing to pay thousands to settle in.

www.nytimes.com

Sorry for the paywall, but the most important stat from the article is in the title.

This makes me a little less sympathetic to complaints about the college debt crisis.

If my math is correct, that comes out to about $5000-10000 per student, per year, depending on what percentage of college students you assume are living in dorms. I find that hard to believe.

How about quoting a few passages from the article so we know some details without giving NYT money?

 

[joluoto]

I can't help but think is a small number of wealthy students who aren't taking out loans

Yeah, these are wealthy students doing this (possibly with daddy's money). Most students can't afford shit.

 

[The Mark]

Tuition: $9,400. Dorm Room Interior Designer: $10,000?

Some students arrive on campus expecting certain comforts. And they, or their parents, are willing to pay thousands to settle in.

www.nytimes.com

Sorry for the paywall, but the most important stat from the article is in the title.

This makes me a little less sympathetic to complaints about the college debt crisis.

People who can pay that much for "dorm decoration" aren't the ones complaining about college debt.

Edit: OR at least not the ones who actually are impacted by that debt.

 

[HonestJoe]

This makes me a little less sympathetic to complaints about the college debt crisis.

So some students have lots of money and that makes you less sympathetic for the students who don't? Isn't that like seeing at the average house price and then having less sympathy for the homeless?

Also, in addition to agreeing with those saying the headline was designed to create exactly that (false) impression, what I was able to read of it seemed to be largely marketing for interior designers making money from those wealthy students. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the statistics came from something commissioned and funded by those companies in the first place and them sent to the press by their PR team.

 

[Cameron]

So some students have lots of money and that makes you less sympathetic for the students who don't? Isn't that like seeing at the average house price and then having less sympathy for the homeless?

It certainly makes me less sympathetic for broad forgiveness regardless of whether a particular individual actually needs it.

 

[Cameron]

If my math is correct, that comes out to about $5000-10000 per student, per year, depending on what percentage of college students you assume are living in dorms. I find that hard to believe.

How about quoting a few passages from the article so we know some details without giving NYT money?

I agree with you that the math seems funky on this. The article claims $1.5k per student but I don’t see how that would equate to $87 billion total.

 

[Noodlegawd]

I agree with you that the math seems funky on this. The article claims $1.5k per student but I don’t see how that would equate to $87 billion total.

I looked into it a little deeper. I think it's a combination of the NRF report being badly worded, and the NYT reporter being functionally illiterate.

Looking at the NRF site, I think I figured out that the $87 billion includes ALL back to school expenses for college students, including electronics, books, food, and dorm and apartment furnishings, etc. That's bordering on a little closer to believable, but still seems high. Either way, there's no way that would equate to only 1.5k per student. The NRF report says it comes out to about $1400 per household, but it's obviously wrong unless there are almost 70 million households with college students in them.

 

[Deuce]

No the **** they didn't.

Which speaks to Post #2's accuracy

 

[Deuce]

I looked into it a little deeper. I think it's a combination of the NRF report being badly worded, and the NYT reporter being functionally illiterate.

Looking at the NRF site, I think I figured out that the $87 billion includes ALL back to school expenses for college students, including electronics, books, food, and dorm and apartment furnishings, etc. That's bordering on a little closer to believable, but still seems high. Either way, there's no way that would equate to only 1.5k per student. The NRF report says it comes out to about $1400 per household, but it's obviously wrong unless there are almost 70 million households with college students in them.

There aren't even a third that many college students in the US

 

[Napoleon]

The OP article can be read at no cost as republished by the Seattle Times:

Tuition: $9,400. Dorm room interior designer: $10,000?

For some students, the days of racing to Bed Bath & Beyond the day before college starts, clutching a 20%-off coupon to snag a colorful crate and a snap-on desk lamp, are long gone.

www.seattletimes.com

The original NYT author misrepresented the NRF’s figures. The $87 billion figure is for ALL back-to-school spending for college students. The amount of money spent specifically on interior design of dorm rooms is as follows:

“Students are making their way back to campus after learning remotely. This year, 59 percent plan to live away from home, whether it be in a dorm, apartment, or sorority or fraternity house, up from 55 percent last year, and spending is increasing on dorm and apartment furnishings. Projected total spending is $10.5 billion, significantly up from $9.7 billion in 2021, and the percent of back-to-college shoppers planning to purchase dorm and apartment furnishings is at its highest in the history of the survey at 57 percent.“

What’s trending in back-to-college shopping

NRF’s research shows increases in planned spending on electronic accessories and furniture.

nrf.com

That corrected - over half of college students are projected to spend a total of $10.5 billion on interior design of their dorm rooms and that is outrageous. Room and board is part of the cost of tuition for those staying in dorms. Cost paid for by their student loans. If they can afford $10.5 billion on the interior design of their rooms then they should be expected to pay every cent of their loans back plus interest.

 

[Helix]

I bought a bunch of Beatles posters. I also bought a great reclining chair from a thrift store for like fifteen bucks. There's a funny story about me driving that thing back to the dorm in a compact hatchback. I kept it for many years, but eventually, like my young adulthood, it disintegrated.

 

[Napoleon]

I'm guessing the students who spend big bucks to make their dorms livable do not quality for loan forgiveness. In 2021 when my 2 g-girls entered college, they chose to live in an off-campus apartment with 2 other kids; each would pay 800.00 a month. This place was uninhabitable, worse than a tenement- filthy dirty, cabinet doors in the kitchen missing, broken faucets, thread bare broken furnishings, holes in the dirty carpeting and tumbleweeds of nasty hair all over the floor. Their dad took one look around and said HELL NO. Their dad paid the security fees to put them up in a house that they share with 2 other girls for the same amount of money. They have sparse furnishings, but it doesn't matter, between school and working, they're hardly ever there.

Getting the numbers out of the way first - 70% of undergraduate college students have student loans. 57% of college students are projected to spend $10.5 billion on the interior design of their dorm rooms. This is mostly middle and lower class people. Granted, dorms are not a page out of the Restoration Hardware catalogue and we can talk for hours about universities being slum lords but they are habitable. They have no business spending that kind of money while the taxpayer is subsidizing their education. Talk about champaign taste on a Natty Light budget.

 

[OrphanSlug]

FFS, talk about a bunch of things out of context.

You can have plenty of students on campus from families with more money than sense be in a position to spend thousands on interior designed dorm rooms right down the hall from another set of students going to the same university that will be working while in school and racking up plenty of higher education debt.

This is a classic example of what social media level thinking does to the electorate.

The fact that some kids and their families can afford such luxury does not diminish the out of control higher education debt issue in this nation impacting the majority of students.

We've been a consumer spending economy for decades now and it should not be a shock that some, not all but some, go crazy in getting their college life looking like the OP article examples. Very similar story with kids going back to high school where some are wearing the latest trends in clothes, carrying plenty of new gear and electronics while others show up with a backpack they got from a charitable organization helping kids from families at the lowest income quintile.

Putting what some kids can spend in the same picture with higher education debt was just not wise.

 

[Nemiroff]

Tuition: $9,400. Dorm Room Interior Designer: $10,000?

Some students arrive on campus expecting certain comforts. And they, or their parents, are willing to pay thousands to settle in.

www.nytimes.com

Sorry for the paywall, but the most important stat from the article is in the title.

This makes me a little less sympathetic to complaints about the college debt crisis.

Imagine making a career of scouring statistics to find connections to smear the working man in times of record income inequality and the death of any American dream.

 

[Econ4every1]

First, there are about 11.1 million college students attending 4 year schools in the US. 75% of students in college come from the top two income quartiles (top 50%). Students that come from the bottom 25% have only the money they've borrowed or earned in grants scholarships and tuition. Their families have nothing to spare and as such, their portion of that $87 billion is likely to be, at best a rounding error. Of the top 50%, the first 25% are mostly in the lower middle class with only the last 5% the (70-75th%) or so reaching into what I think could be called the middle class. Their families likely have a few hundred to help get their kids settled.

I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of the spending comes from a small fraction of kids that come from extremely wealthy households in the top 5-7%

So what I take from all this is that we can't give students from poor and middle income families a break on tuition because the kids that come from the top 5-7% of households need At least $70-75 billion (of the $87 billion) to decorate for thier kids living away at college. Got it!

And as a person who sits comfortably in the top 15-20% income wise (and never expected nor needed tuition assistance for my kids) and who lives debt free save a mortgage, I can't imagine anyone I know (who likely have similar incomes) spending more than $200-$500 helping their kids buy necessities (except the occasional bad parent who's trying to buy their child's love), like vacuums, dishes, cleaning supplies, bath mats and creature comforts to decorate their kids rooms at college from the likes of Target or Walmart.

If the kids that come from the top 1% of the nations wealthiest families, that likely represent at least 5% of the nations school population, spent $126,000 on decorations for their kids in school, that would round out to about $70 billion. is it really a stretch to imagine that families making $800k to 10's of millions in income and 10's of millions to billions in wealth, wouldn't spend that kind of money on their kids? I mean, at the upper crust of these kids their parents are likely competing to see who can spend the most money on their kids. In a world where people spends 10's of thousands on phone games, it would not surprise me if wealthy CEO's and Saudi Sheiks are spending 100's of thousands on decorations for their kids rooms in college.

 

[Fearandloathing]

Tuition: $9,400. Dorm Room Interior Designer: $10,000?

Some students arrive on campus expecting certain comforts. And they, or their parents, are willing to pay thousands to settle in.

www.nytimes.com

Sorry for the paywall, but the most important stat from the article is in the title.

This makes me a little less sympathetic to complaints about the college debt crisis.

I doubt the validity of the story.

 

[j brown's body]

Tuition: $9,400. Dorm Room Interior Designer: $10,000?

Some students arrive on campus expecting certain comforts. And they, or their parents, are willing to pay thousands to settle in.

www.nytimes.com

Sorry for the paywall, but the most important stat from the article is in the title.

This makes me a little less sympathetic to complaints about the college debt crisis.

Tuere are,, obviously, kids going to college who are not in debt.

But I don't see $87 billion anywhere in the article.

 

[Econ4every1]

I doubt the validity of the story.

I did at first, but when you consider how much disposable income is in the top 5% of the nations wealthiest families who's likely represent at least 10-15% of college students. Not hard for me to imagine them spending 10's or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on their kids to dress up their dorms.

When I lived in Boston as a kid in my late teens early 20's it was a bit of a yearly ritual to drive though the ally's of the row homes of the Students attending MIT, Boston College, Berklee College of music etc...looking for nice furniture they'd throw in the trash when the school year was out. Yes, I was a trash picker, but getting high end furniture for free was worth it when you didn't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out. And that was in the 1980's when wealth disparity was a fraction of what it is today. Not hard for me to imgaine things have become much, much more extreme.

 

[Boots]

I bought a bunch of Beatles posters. I also bought a great reclining chair from a thrift store for like fifteen bucks. There's a funny story about me driving that thing back to the dorm in a compact hatchback. I kept it for many years, but eventually, like my young adulthood, it disintegrated.

Like many college students, one group of guys at my school had an old couch on the front porch of their apartment. Not sure how or why, but it was there. For senior year their goal was to have a keg on tap every day. They were persistent and met that goal. Each reunion one of those guys stops at a goodwill type store on the way back to campus, purchases and hauls a couch and brings it back to the house. It is placed on the front porch and most members of our class attend an afternoon pre-function at that house as a reminder of the good old days. The one time I attended I was struck by the serendipity of us being able to relive a bit of our youth by attending a party at one of the old party houses. I asked who knew the owner and how we were able to utilize the porch each June at the 5 year mark. The answer concerned me....nobody knew the owner, nobody sought permission, given that it was summer and still a college house, the current tenants simply weren't usually there to object. The one time there was a tenant there, she was offered help moving her furniture in and all the leftover booze in exchange for use of the porch for a few hours as well as the bathroom (which in most years was not available due to nobody being home).

Once I discovered we were simply squatters I made sure to remain on the sidewalk!