I am a college student and take it from me, do not ride a nice bike to school and leave it locked for more than a couple minutes. However, you can find a nice, light old steel lugged from and do a killer conversion for less than 500 easy. Bikeisland.com has some very budget minded wheel sets and for all other stuff Ebay is always good and your lbs also is a good place to start. What college are you at?