This is not a recent phenomenon. You would not BELIEVE the stuff students throw out rather than carry home. I went to a private college in NJ and my husband went to a state school in GA, and it was exactly the same in both cases. I graduated in 77 and he graduated in 73.
No computers (they had barely been invented yet), but all sorts of really neat stuff. I still have a pair of hiking boots that were a perfect fit -- with the paper still in the toes. And my husband has a sodium lamp that came out of the dumpster behind the chemistry building.
Probably not.
I imagine this must happen at every college and university across the nation at this time of year.
Seems like a waste, but also an excellent opportunity for bargain hunters.
I figure if posting this article somehow enourages just one more school to initiate a similar end-of-year rummage-sale / flea market to benefit Goodwill Industries or whoever, then I'll have done my good deed for today. Heck, if a school has some kind of small warehouse space available, such a flea market could be set up permanently to provide recycled bargains for other students. No sense letting all that good junk go to waste!