The Cost of LaCoste

Tuition this year for Boston College freshmen is $30,950. Add just over $6,000 for room and just under $4,000 for board. Add on to that a Health Services fee, a Student Activities fee, an orientation fee, and 20 bucks for your ID card, and the grand total is ... $41,950. Ouch.

Think of it this way. You could buy (assuming you're 21 years old of course) 2,097 cases of Busch Lite for that much. That's more than 60,000 cans. That's 720,000 ounces of beer. Now that's a real tailgate.

Let's play this game with another commodity - one very popular among college students. Jeans. How many pairs of jeans could you buy if you took your tuition money and ran?

A pair of 7 Jeans goes for, on the low end, about $132. You could buy 317 pairs. Just shy of one for every day of the year. The new line of Gap jeans costs around $60. That's 699 pairs. Is your head swimming yet? If you logged onto J.C. Penny's Web site for a pair of stretch denim jeans you could find them on sale for $19.99.

So, you get it, you can buy a lot of clothes for 40 grand - and many BC students' mouths water at the thought of it.

Spending thousands on clothes isn't out of the realm of possibilities. A New York Times article from Sept. 12 noted that prices for high fashion have sky rocketed - with Fashion Week in New York just past, prices for the new Prada coat hit over $5,000 and a Marc Jacobs jacket commanded around $4,000.

Fashion at this high-end of the scale may be a little bit outside the budget of even BC's fashion gurus, but more affordable designer brands and high-end retail stores are out in full swing.

"People feel pressure to buy clothes from Gap or Abercrombie but not as inclined to buy designer brands. If you are, it's designers like Tiffany's, Coach, or Louis Vuitton. It's the same designers all the time," said Kate Reilly, A&S '06, wearing a blue and white striped button-up top with khaki shorts.

"If someone is wearing Uggs, it's not because Mary-Kate Olsen is wearing them, it's because everyone here is wearing them," she continued. "At BC you see more ostentatious designers. If you're going to buy a designer, don't buy a designer because it says it all over [the item]."

Reilly often shops when things are on sale, but she will buy an expensive item, or clothing at full price if she really likes it, and if it fits well, because "being tall makes it harder to find clothes that fit."

"I will splurge on something expensive every once in a while," said Michelle Tetrault, LSOE '06, "but when I do, I feel as though I am more put together, maybe even subconsciously I feel more important or attractive in expensive clothes. Also, another reason I might splurge is because it fits me right." Tetrault has the same problem as Reilly - finding clothes that fit well - but in Tetrault's case it is because she is shorter.

Sometimes clothes are worth splurging on, for example, a form-fitting, comfortable pair of designer jeans that are often hard to find on sale, said Jenna Keegan, A&S '06. "You'll wear them all the time and you'll have them for a long time."

"If you really want to spend money on something, you should spend it on accessories. You could be wearing a $30 dress, and a great pair of shoes can really dress it up," said Keegan, noting that buying expensive accessories, purses, belts, or shoes for example, can be more worthwhile than buying expensive clothing because they are more versatile and will have more use.

"People who carry around Coach bags instead of regular JanSport backpacks do it because it is an image thing," said Tetrault. "I personally do not like regular backpacks, so I opt for the over the shoulder tote. However, instead of getting a really cheap, generic one, I had to go out and buy a Coach one, mainly because I have an odd obsession with Coach. But also, if you look around everywhere, BC is a really preppy, rich school."

"It hasn't hit me yet that for the first time I can wear whatever I want to class," said Kieran Ridge, A&S '09, who wore a uniform throughout high school.

"Basically a week before I got here, I went shopping with my mom and my sister, and every time I went to buy something, my mom would ask my sister [who also goes to BC], 'Is that something the boys at BC wear?'" Ridge said, casually donning a loose-fitting T-shirt and jeans. "And I'm like, 'I'm gonna wear what I wear.'"

Students finance their shopping habits from a variety of sources, from summer jobs, campus jobs, mom and dad's credit card, or great-granddad's inheritance money.

"I don't go shopping very often, and when I do, I try not to spend more than a quarter of my most recent paycheck," said Elizabeth Zephir, A&S '06.

Other factors can influence students' purchasing decisions. Much of clothing sold in the United States is made outside of the country, often with cheap labor or in poor working conditions.

"Ideally, people would try to support clothing companies that don't support [sweatshops or poor labor conditions], but in this instance, it's near impossible," said Zephir.

Stores such as American Apparel, a Los Angeles based clothier, sells clothes that are made only in downtown Los Angeles, sweatshop free. It employs "fair labor" practices and its workers earn an average of $12.50 an hour, almost double the California state minimum wage, according to the store's web site.

One of American Apparel's chain stores sits on Newbury Street. It has an indie vibe, but the prices aren't a bargain ($15 for a T-shirt and $45 for a sweatshirt, according to a BusinessWeek article from June 27).

The sense of service is strong at BC, and clothing drives happen at the end of each year, when volunteers collect items to donate to charities. This year, clothing drives are happening earlier than normal on campus, with the clothes being sent to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina.