Before either roommate has signed a lease, they’ve already picked out a color scheme. Dorm planning now starts in a group chat weeks before move-in, complete with Pinterest boards, matching bedding and arguments over who gets the good desk. What used to be a mini fridge and a poster has turned into a full-blown design project, planned like a home renovation and finished in a single weekend.
Part of the pressure comes from watching everyone else finish first. TikTok dorm tours have become their own genre by August, complete with dramatic reveals, before-and-after shots and product tags for every throw pillow. Incoming freshmen scroll through these from their childhood bedrooms, taking notes on layouts and shelving tricks before they’ve even measured their own room. A finished room posted online sets a bar the next student feels obligated to clear, even if they’ve never met their future roommate.
Families Are Only Spending $194 on Dorm Decor
Families are on track to spend a record $103.5 billion getting students ready for the school year. The dorm room tells a smaller story. Families planning to buy dorm or apartment furnishings this year expect to spend $194 on average, barely above $191.39 last year, the slowest growth of any of the top five college spending categories. The total dollars flowing into dorm decor climbed, from $12.8 billion to $14 billion. That’s mostly more households buying in, not any single family spending big.
Dorm Design Searches Are up 525%
If budgets aren’t growing, the mood board definitely is. Searches for “dorm designer” jumped 525% over the past month, and “3D rendering dorm room” became one of Google’s breakout searches nationally in the same stretch.
The most popular aesthetic isn’t luxury at all. Coastal, boho and beach are among the season’s top trending dorm styles, with pink, blue and green as the leading colors, a distinctly beachy palette for a room nowhere near open water. Wallpaper searches spiked too, with hydrangea as the top-searched pattern in a decor category built to peel off before a security deposit is at risk.
Target Is Adding Hollister and Poppi to Dorm Shelves
Retailers are treating the whole moment as a merchandising opportunity, not a luxury market. Target’s back-to-college lineup this year includes Hollister’s first home-and-dorm collaboration, with bedding and decor priced mostly under $50, plus a limited-run Poppi collection that extends the soda brand into robes, throw pillows and mini fridges starting at $20. A separate LoveShackFancy partnership brings the brand’s prints to school supplies and accessories for under $55.
The interest goes beyond the shelves, too. Among MNTN’s own advertisers in dorm-adjacent categories like bedding and home goods, average revenue grew 73.6% year over year during last summer’s peak buying window, and visits per advertiser more than doubled.
Electronics is still the biggest line item in college spending overall, and personal care actually grew the fastest of the five categories. The dorm room is generating plenty of buzz. It’s just not where the big checks are being written. So if your feed has you feeling behind, know this: most incoming students are working with the same $194 budget you are.
Mandy Applegate is the creator behind Splash of Taste and seven other high-profile food and travel blogs. She’s also the co-founder of Food Drink Life Inc., a unique and highly rewarding collaborative blogger project. Her articles appear frequently on major online news sites, and she always has her eyes open to spot the next big trend.