A standard Tufts dorm room comes with a bed, a desk, a closet and a chest of drawers. But for many students these items are just bare in dorm room decor.
The National Retail Federation (NRF) reports that college students will spend almost $34.4 billion this year on their dorm rooms - almost 34 percent higher than last year. That figure is more than twice the $13.4 billion spent by students in elementary, middle and high school combined, according to the NRF.
Retailers are unsurprisingly figuring out ways to capitalize on students' willingness to part with their cash: Linens 'n Things and Bed, Bath & Beyond now offer online dorm-room registries. Along with the registries - which encourage family and friends to pay for anything the students request - these stores have intricate Web sites with "how to design" interactive videos and model campus rooms.
The Container Store employs people to help students and their parents (by phone or e-mail) decorate the confined dorm space. After filling out a Web site form detailing what a student is bringing to college, the "dorm room experts" will tell students what to buy.
Sophomore Emma Shields, who lives in West Hall, spent most of her dorm decorating money on storage. "I have a quad, so I spent so much money - about $300 just myself - on a lot of storage because our bedrooms in West are so tiny."
Shields estimates she and her roommates spent a total of $1,200 on the room.
"College students have money to spend, and stores are going all out - they have wandered into a gold mine," NRF spokeswoman Ellen Davis told the Associated Press. The extreme lengths to which stores are going to reach college students reflects their enormous buying power: the August and September back-to-school months have become the year's second highest spending season after the winter holidays.
Students' eagerness to open their wallets and decorate their dorm rooms was evident in the popular bus trips during Orientation. The trips went to the Cambridgeside Galleria and Mystic View Plaza in Medford.
The latter trip met with unexpected demand. While the buses to Target were supposed to leave the University once per hour from 1 - 5 p.m., the buses were needed once per half-hour.
"There were three people to a seat, and people were even sitting on each other's laps" freshman Jeremy Price said.
Additional crowding occurred when students returned with a large amount of merchandise. "A lot of people came back with refrigerators and bureaus that took up whole seats," freshman Lara Hwa said.
A speaker from Bed Bath & Beyond spoke to students about outfitting dorm rooms during orientation. The Sept. 3 event, attended by 60 students, included a display of dorm room items.
The Bed Bath & Beyond speaker came to speak at Tufts for free, in exchange for a student trip to Bed Bath & Beyond so students could see items shown during the presentation.
This was the first year the representative attended orientation.
Tufts students may be buying merchandise from stores like Target, but they're not necessarily buying into the premise behind those stores' lines of expanded dorm-d?©??r items. "My room doesn't have to look like a picture in a catalog," Price said. "I don't need a beaded accent rug for my room to be considered 'decorated.'"
Some students are not interested in spending hundreds of dollars on d?©??r when college expenses are high.
"I have pictures of my friends and posters I already had from home in my room, [and] I also have pictures up from a recycled calendar," Hwa said. "I paid $500 for my textbooks and a lot more for tuition here. I don't need to spend a fortune on decorating my room."
