The only time I really went on a shopping spree for school items, was the first quarter at SCAD. After that, there was no mad dash to Target or Wal-Mart to get last minute items, since I was able to reuse everything from the earlier year. However, if I had an apartment, and not a dorm, to live in, I think it would have been very useful to have some sort of easy card my parents could load money onto that I could spend on apartment items. Not necessarily a credit card, and not putting money into my checking account, but a specific card to be used only for living items. Sears has a neat little gift card system they offer for their Sears CampusReady programme, where the parent and student both have a copy of the card and the parent can add on money whenever they want, in store or online. The card can also be used at Kmart, so that makes it easier when a student needs groceries, or other things Sears just doesn't carry.
It's a good system, I think. Sears has a whole tool to help get the necessities for incoming freshmen with their Campus Ready programme. There's even CampusReady on Facebook, so students can easily access it while doing the usual Facebook daily check.
It's actually pretty cool, for those who are so into designing their own dorm room or want to coordinate with their roommate(s). To me...it's a little overboard, but I'm a simple person who plans on using what she bought for her dorm room for a loooonnnngg time after. Except for those stupid sheets, that only fit on the college issued extra-long-twin and no other bed. But, those shall be saved for the next generation of college bound. And hopefully Sears will still have a good programme like this to help us out and budget.
