Hit the books? No, the stores

Was it only a generation ago that going off to college meant packing the family wagon with a small trunk filled with no-thread-count linens, hand-me-down towels and a blanket culled from Grandma’s collection?

With the average student expected to spend $900 on back-to-school shopping this year, college kids aren’t so much going off to school as they are gearing up to decorate. They’re loading up the SUV with the “Top 50 Must Haves” from Target, including a $49.99 safari-style computer desk chair and a $75 beaded throw from Pier 1’s new bohemian chic line, created this year with the “fashion-aware teen or college student in mind.”

“Today’s college consumer wants to have nice things, new things and a lot of things. It’s the ‘Trading Spaces’ phenomenon,” says Kristin Glass, a program developer for student services at Augustana College, a small liberal arts school in Rock Island, Ill., referring to the popular Learning Channel show in which rooms are quickly redone on a budget. “Students are getting the message that any space can be trendy, hip and personalized -- even a dorm room.”

Marketed to since birth and influenced by TV’s wave of reality decorating programs, today’s college students are nothing short of a marketer’s dream, experts say. They came of age during the pre-recession economic boom. Many are used to disposable income and have grown up with gadgets. Their world is wired and wireless, and they expect their dorm rooms to be the same.

A decade ago, the back-to-college market barely existed, according to a survey by the National Retail Foundation in Washington, D.C., yet last year college consumers spent $25.8 billion on such must-have items as the Perfect Curve Cap Rack System, a hat rack for baseball caps that sells for $19.99 at Bed Bath & Beyond, or the Cocomotion, a $24 device from Wal-Mart whose sole purpose is to make four cups of hot chocolate.

This means the average 18-to-24-year-old allotted almost $843 for “everything from comforters to computers to coats,” and spending this year is expected to increase by about 7%, says Ellen Tolley, director of media relations for the foundation.

“Students have been going off to college for years, but retailers weren’t paying attention to that market,” she says. “That changed in the late 1990s.”

The concept of college as a decorating -- and shopping -- opportunity is a bulletin to the baby boomer parents of teens who can’t leave for school without a 42-pocket over-the-door closet storage system that goes for $29.99 at Bed Bath & Beyond.

“This isn’t what we grew up with,” says Allen D. Kanner, co-editor of “Psychology and Consumer Culture: The Struggle for a Good Life in a Materialistic World,” published last year. “We were ignored. But today’s children are used to being targeted. Anyplace that a youngster goes in public will have marketing. Marketers have become very good at getting around parents.

“As a parent, you have to pull your kids into a dark closet to protect them from marketing,” says Kanner, a child and family psychologist in Berkeley. “And it has to be a dark closet so they won’t see the labels on the clothes.”

With college enrollment steadily increasing over the past decade and with more than 16 million students expected to take up higher education by 2005, according to estimates from the National Center for Education Statistics in Washington, D.C., it’s no wonder retailers are targeting the college crowd.

“Retailers see parents walk into a store with their kids and they’ll drop $200 or $300 in one shopping trip,” says C. Britt Beemer, chairman and founder of America’s Research Group, a consumer behavior research firm based in Charleston, S.C. “Except for Christmas, there aren’t many times that people spend that much at one given moment. Everyone wants a piece of that pie.”

Students paying careful attention to retail websites and TV and print advertising may feel as if they ought to earn college credit for wading through them. Pier 1’s Design U gives an online lesson that outlines a five-point plan for a “rocking room redo.” Target lists no fewer than “1,000 new back-to-college essentials” on its website and blankets TV with a high-energy commercial exhorting college students to “Do Your Room.”

At Bed Bath & Beyond’s website, future students can mark this major life step just as prospective parents or newlyweds long have, by registering for gifts. The “college registry” allows them to signal interest in one of 14 ways to decorate their dorm, including Pearl Glam (feminine purples) and Preppy Andover (black plaids and stripes). While perusing “Survival 101,” students can also pick up college survival tips or read “Memoirs of a College Freshman.”

On Friday, HGTV aired a block of shows about making over small spaces and marketed it as a “back-to-school design-a-thon.” Its website, www.hgtv.com, provides directions for such how-to college dormitory projects as building corner shelving, and a refreshingly generic dorm checklist. (Along with a computer and quarters for laundry, they advise bringing along an anti-theft safe.)

Even Brita of water-filter pitcher fame has a magazine ad complete with college checklist. Not surprisingly, a Brita pitcher is a “must have,” as are Clorox bleach pens and disinfecting wipes. Clorox acquired U.S. distribution rights to Brita products in 1988.

Acquiring the right stuff can help them adjust to a new social pecking order, students say.

“My freshman year, it was important to have the PlayStation 2, the video games, the DVD player and the CD player,” says Michael Nardelli, 21, a senior at USC. “A lot of times you don’t feel like doing your homework, you need some downtime, so you’d get together with a group of guys and girls and play some games.”

The products being pushed go way beyond the basics. How can the fledgling collegian survive without Wal-Mart’s corduroy moon chair -- a large upside-down Frisbee on legs -- for almost $37 or a quesadilla maker for $30 from Linens ‘n Things?

One observer of contemporary culture links all this conspicuous college shopping to an inherent need to spend money. “Back-to-school shopping is a pick-me-up for consumers, especially in a quarter where there are no holidays to celebrate,” says Nora McCauley of Jump Associates, a San Mateo, Calif., firm that helps companies identify new market opportunities.

That retailers even hire a company like Jump to track the spending patterns and habits of these students by following them around with video cameras -- and putting them in rooms to talk about the perils of college life -- in itself says something about the power of this market. After all, the end result of all this research is often products that students can live without.

Take the offhand comment one college sophomore made in a Jump-sponsored focus group: “My mom always did my laundry, and it was really weird because now I have to do my own laundry.” That led one manufacturer to create a hot-selling laundry bag with instructions on how to separate colors and whites sewn into the inseam. A generation ago, an empty pillowcase did the job just fine.

Not all of these newfangled products aimed at college kids meet the approval of the dean -- or fire safety standards. Halogen lights and George Foreman grills usually top the list of no-nos.

UCLA and other schools prohibit refrigerators and microwaves, yet the MicroFridge -- a microwave-refrigerator combo -- gets in under the radar. It was designed to solve the problem of overloaded circuits in large buildings, including colleges and universities, and the smallest version goes for about $250.

The tiny MicroFridge is part of a micro-trend in college-product marketing -- sweepstakes contests. Buy a specific MicroFridge and you get a chance to win a trip in the “Student in Paris Sweepstakes.” Brita gives students a chance to win $10,000 toward tuition, while Linens ‘n Things’ “destination dorm sweepstakes” gives them a shot at a 2005 Saturn Relay.

With all these opportunities for pre-college consumer bingeing, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that these students are off on a life-defining adventure. In addition to getting an education, presumably the real reason they’re moving into those dorm rooms, they’re also learning to navigate a whole new way of life. So it helps to have a little perspective.

Stephanie Snyder, 21, a senior at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, admits to having her fair share of accouterments. But ask her what her No. 1 “must have” would be for her dorm room and she responds with a marketing-proof reply: “Pictures.”

“Pictures mean the world,” Snyder says. “I have pictures of my family, friends from back home and new friends. They remind you of where you are, where you came from and who are you are becoming.”

And, that, after all, is exactly what college should be about.

Robin Greene Hagey is a Los Angeles-area freelance writer. She can be reached at home@

latimes.com.