Move over, milk crates: Dorm rooms now come with interior designers — and five-figure price tags

The summer before my freshman year of college, my 18-year-old brain was wholly devoted to two things: relishing the last delicious bits of time with high school friends and the equally important endeavor of curating the perfect dorm room aesthetic.The “it” color that summer was mint green. My chosen vibe was (I giggle as I write this) “shabby chic” — because there’s nothing like a 168-square-foot cinder-block prison cell draped in lace and florals.Hiring an interior designer to curate a perfectly polished, bespoke dorm room robs a girl of the trial-and-error experience of honing her unique brand of beauty.Once my Pinterest mood board was created, I enlisted my poor mother, who — bless her — cheered and abetted all my fantastical pursuits, to help. I dragged her to various home goods retailers, craft stores, and antique malls until we had what we needed to realize my vision of weathered eleganceWhen move-in day arrived, we utterly transformed the sterile gray box into a twinkle-lit sanctuary. Floral craft paper taped over cinder blocks became “vintage wallpaper.” Ornate gold picture frames hung with Command hooks created a “gallery wall.” Gauzy fabric thumbtacked into drop ceiling tiles served as a “bed canopy.”I know what you’re thinking: This is ridiculous.Reader, I couldn’t agree more. It was ridiculous — but it was fun, wildly creative, and one of my most cherished memories to date.Judge me if you must, but hold your scrutiny until I tell you what some students are doing with their dorm rooms today.A growing trend that is delighting some and incensing most involves hiring professionals to create custom “home” designs for college students. In other words, dorm room interior design is now a legitimate professional service.Inside the full-service dorm design experienceWhat does hiring a dorm room interior designer involve? As it turns out, quite a lot.It begins with a consultation — sometimes, depending on the company you opt for, multiple consultations. This is where the details of the project are ironed out: room dimensions, timelines, budgets, and, most importantly, vibes. Identifying and capturing one’s stated personal style is, of course, at the heart of these operations.Then comes procurement.But most of these designers, certainly the high-end ones, aren’t plucking knickknacks off Target and TJ Maxx shelves. “Mainstream” and “mass-produced” tend not to be in the vocabularies of the Southern belles who make up the overwhelming majority of dorm room designers’ clientele.It’s only natural that an elevated experience would involve elevated items — and that’s exactly what most of these designers purchase or commission on behalf of their clients. A combination of custom headboards, made-to-fit cabinets, accent walls, and high-end furniture pieces paired with custom drapes, original artwork, monogrammed textiles, and specialty lighting ensure that each girl (or exceedingly rare male) gets a luxurious and one-of-a-kind living space.Shelly Gates, the founder of Mary Margaret Designs, a design firm specializing in college dorm rooms, works directly with a “carpenter, seamstress, and handyman” to pull off her elaborate custom work.“It definitely takes a village to get those dorm rooms together,” she told House Beautiful.And it’s no wonder. Here’s an example of a dorm room she decorated at the University of Alabama:Designer Ginger Curtis put it more bluntly to the New York Times: “We’re moving away from Ikea and getting the opposite of fast furniture.” Ginger is the founder of Urbanology Designs, a high-end Dallas-based interior design firm that has expanded into decorating luxury college dorm rooms because the demand is there.Is it really, though? Is there actually a viable market for dorm room interior design?Oh, yes — but with one critical distinction.The demand is real — and growingFor starters, shelling out cash for dorm rooms is trending upward. The National Retail Federation projects college students and their families will spend a record $103.5 billion on back-to-school supplies this year — up from $88.8 billion the year prior. $14 billion of that is expected to be spent on dorm room or apartment furnishings alone.Is this increase in expected spending caused by higher prices? Without a doubt — but the fact that there are now several companies specializing in transforming standard dorm rooms into luxury suites suggests that rising expectations are also a factor.Business does seem to be booming for these niche designers, too.Mary Margaret Designs, Gates explained in the same House Beautiful interview, started as a summer side hustle when she was a teacher. But when the business “exploded,” she made it her full-time gig. According to the Independent, she “now has a wait list stretching two to three years.”Eden Bowen Montgomery, founder of dorm room design firm Essentials with Eden (a hilariously ironic name), had built such an empire by 2024 that she had to hire a seasonal staff of 25 employees.But it’s important to note that this particular design service is not trending across the nation. Its popularity is specifically concentrated in the South. Montgomery, Gates, Curtis, and Dawn Thomas (After Five Designs founder and pioneer of the high-end dorm room design trend) are all based in the South and primarily serve large Southern state schools, including Ole Miss, the University of Alabama, Louisiana State University, Mississippi State, and Southern Methodist University in Texas.It’s not lost on me that all of these schools are famous for their intense Greek-life cultures. I’m not here to cast aspersions on sororities, but I think it’s fair to say that the modern ones are not known for cultivating the values of moderation or restraint. It fits that the exclusive clubs notorious for choreographed RushTok dances and five-figure designer rush outfits would also sustain a thriving dorm-room design industry.RELATED: This new app for new moms is a game-changer ArtistGNDphotography/Getty ImagesDelivery, installation, and the big revealThe entire elaborate design process wraps up with transportation and installation. A delivery truck packed full of custom furnishings and décor arrives on campus along with the designer and an install team, who ensure that the lucky girl(s) has a thrilling turnkey experience. Here’s an example of the final stages from Mary Margaret Designs:But the cherry on top, of course, is the big reveal, where the girls are often filmed reacting to their renovated dorm rooms. This filming process is worth noting, I think, because it captures what almost certainly fuels the entire dorm room design industry and the sorority culture it primarily serves: Instagramability. For a tragic majority of today’s youth, an exciting experience is only that if other people are watching.Here’s an example of the grand finale from Thomas’ After Five Designs:The price tagNow for the really fun part: the bill. What do these dramatic dorm room makeovers cost?It’s a spectrum, but on the low end, roughly $5,000 per student. According to the New York Times, a full room makeover from Essentials with Eden will run parents “about $10,000 per room ($5,000 per student)”; Curtis’ Urbanology averages between “$7,000 to $8,000, though the costs can grow much higher.”Mary Margaret Designs, says People magazine, “charges between $5,000 and $20,000 to make over collegiate living spaces.”As the New York Times aptly put it, college living has acquired “the Gilded Versailles Touch.”The part that actually bothers meI’m not going to bore you with the obvious critique: that dorm room interior design that costs more than some home down payments is nauseatingly extravagant. Nor will I indulge in the predictable lament that such obnoxious luxury sets kids up for crushed expectations in a world where AI gobbles up industries like potato chips and home ownership is out of reach for the majority of young Americans.Instead, I want to focus on a less evident but equally important problem. Wanting a fabulous dorm room isn’t the issue for me. I think the introduction of this article makes that quite clear. Rather, the problem is that hiring an interior designer to curate a perfectly polished, bespoke dorm room robs a girl of the trial-and-error experience of honing her unique brand of beauty.You may think it’s not that deep, but I would argue aesthetics are actually key to a woman’s identity. Embodying and cultivating beauty in the world is central to the female experience. It’s not that men don’t care about or play a role in matters of beauty, but there’s a reason home décor shops, Sephoras, and craft stores are frequented primarily by women.This lifelong search for our own brand of beauty starts when we are toddlers trying on our mother’s heels and lipstick. In middle school, it looks like rearranging our rooms and deciding between the leopard and the floral headband. In high school, it’s experimenting with different eyeliner styles. And in college, it’s obsessing over what our first home apart from our parents will look like. It’s a journey that never ends — and one that’s crucial for becoming a confident, original woman.It’s not trivial to search for one’s personal aesthetic, but it is deeply hollow to outsource that creative process to someone else, especially in our formative years — trading messy uniqueness for vanilla perfection. A girl’s sense of style should be forged in hot pink fire, not in design rooms.