Do colleges not store stuff for students who will be back in the fall? My undergraduate school did this (and had a large contingent of students doing research over the summer), so graduation day just meant that furniture was mostly moved around and snatched up by other students, or even stayed in place as the students changed dorm rooms.
At my school there was a service you could pay for that charged by the box, however when I graduated I had to leave a lot of stuff behind (granted I didn't have any $900 furniture).
