For many college students, the university years mark the first time they’ll live anywhere other than their childhood bedroom in their parents’ house.
That transition can be rough regardless of the next step on their life’s journey, but a particularly dingy college dorm can take the experience from bad to worse.
Some students are so desperate for a beautiful dorm that they’re willing to shell out thousands of dollars to ensure there’s no bleak cinder block walls and tile floors in their future. Over the last five years, the number of high-end college dorm rooms — decorated by professional interior designers — has exploded both on TikTok and in real life.
“We’re moving away from Ikea, and getting the opposite of fast furniture,” Ginger Curtis, the founder of Urbanology Designs, told the New York Times (NYT).
College students (and their parents) are paying as much as $8,000 for interior designers like Curtis, for help designing and decorating their dorm rooms with furniture, light fittings, and decor far more elaborate than the tapestries and posters that adorn a typical college pad.
Ole Miss alumna Eden Bowen Montgomery told the New York Times that she founded her dorm design business, Essentials with Eden, while she was still a college student. Just a few years after her 2021 graduation, Montgomery has upward of 200 clients who pay $10,000 for Montgomery’s team to fully design and assemble their dorms on move-in day.
If you’re a high school student dreaming of a beautiful dorm, however, there’s an easier option than paying for a personal decorator. Some colleges already offer palatial dorms to students living on campus.
Each year, the Princeton Review releases its assessment of the best college dorms in America based on student responses to the question, “How do you rate residence halls/on-campus housing?”
Click through to see the five colleges with the most beautiful dorms in the country.
