Students frequently bring their own mattresses, but no bed, dresser or desk.  

If you can fit a bed, dresser, couch and coffee table along with a tv in the room it goes along way in keeping you sane.

All these shows seem to always have a story of 2008 in which a hair dresser, bartender, taxi cab driver,bus driver, etc dipped there toe in real estate when they had no business doing so.

With the $$, I repainted the whole house ($3-4), fixed the cracked kitchen floor tile (2k), removed a living room/dining room wall and built a granite bar island with rolling trash storage (2k), built another br out of a den (1k), insulated (2k), bought washer/dryer/fridge/microwave like new off craigslist ($1.5k) and furnished the common areas with basics (sofa, tv, desk) and some rooms (twin bed, dresser - also CL).

So after I lay out my new wall structure I'll drop a queen or king size bed in there and a dresser and then walk it out in 3D.

The dresser really should be in the bedroom or a closet, but it shouldn't take up more than half the closet so there is still space to hang long items.

I’m going up this weekend to confirm we are on track to complete end of September, and do a punch list.So as I sit in my primary residence filled with: 37 pillows, 8 TVs, 10 night stands, 5 dressers, 2 sofas, 10 rocking chairs, 8-mattresses of various sizes ready for TN; I see a positive.

LOSE the 4 poster beds and multiple dressers! 

As for the furniture, any standard queen size bed, $200-300 dresser, study desk will do.

However, if you plan to target students, you cannot change your location,  but if you can offer a bundle of amenities which makes you attractive and gives you the pick of tenants.In our student rooming house we have the following on offer:furnished bedrooms (bed, dresser, desk & chair) - one unit has single/twin beds, the other has double/queen beds.Utilities included.Internet included - we need an internet connection for our building monitoring, but do not need much bandwidth.