enbe

It's just plain not worth it! You can get an apartment by yourself in the $400-600 range (I had one for $400 but it was a great find, not too typical) and get a room in a nice Tucson-style adobe OR a newer development house for ~3-500. It's pretty darn cheap to live in Tucson. I live 4 blocks from campus in a cute, old stand alone house with a giant yard and I pay $425+utilities a month with one roommate...and that's a little on the expensive side for Tucson because I chose to live close. Those graduate housing buildings are such a rip-off and anyone I know who has lived in them got out as soon as possible. Check with your dept and craigslist (which works really well in Tucson) for people looking for roommates. I've had great success with craigslist and later just biking around neighborhoods and calling numbers (obviously you can't do that remotely).

I don't have a car in Tucson but my house has one. You can shop for groceries and get around town easy enough on a bike (and it is a great biking city!) but for purchasing things while moving in (you try biking pillows and laundry detergent around town!) and for buying more than a six-pack of beer, a car helps. The nice thing about Tucson is that you can live within walking/biking distance of the university and a supermarket and the downtown bar area VERY CHEAPLY. That said, many people I know who came without cars ended up buying one. It depends on how dependent you are on cars (I'm 24 and never owned one) and what your living situation is like (ie: can you borrow one to make major shopping trips). Also, if you like to hike/camp/get out in the wilderness, it's nice to have a car on hand. But that's true even in cities with great public transportation. My advice, come without one, buy one here if you feel the need...