At Ole Miss and other southern schools, hundreds of students are paying interior designers who specialize in dorm rooms to design and install custom fabrics and furniture and high-end bedding and accessories, in some cases spending more on designer fees and furniture than their annual tuition.
Meanwhile, only 54.6% of admitted students at Ole Miss who receive Pell Grants graduate within six years. These are students from families making less than $60,000 a year (and most Pell Grant recipients are from families earning less). In part, these students are juggling jobs and classes and possibly commuting. They may be supporting family while going to school. In part, they come from schools with too few resources to prepare them for college and they only learn in their first semester how much other schools offer. In part, they simply doubt over and over if they belong.
There can't be policy against the conspicuous ease of having your personal designer showing up on move-in day. There can be policy about leveling the playing field in most every other dimension of public education.
