The virtues of originality

I went to a coffee shop this afternoon. It was the kind of cute little place when you can go talk with a group or simply be alone, reading a book.
You can tell this haven is a corner away from the local College, because the majority of the costumers are evidently college students, doing homework or group projects. Now how do I know they are students? Yes, there are the books.

But I noticed today a strange trend.
College boys, at least 90% of those I saw there, have the same style. You can tell the main goal is to be original and outside the norm and non-conformist.

So I'm having a hard time understanding why the vast majority of them wear a beard, long hair, wool shirts (a few layers of them) and the occasional hippy-looking scarf and peircings . It's like the college-boy's uniform for the free-spirit artist. So much for being original. Or maybe I'm being judgemental here and they simply are too poor to afford a rasor and and haircut??