Ah...college. For many, it represents the halcyon days when our minds were expanding and our checking accounts were shrinking. Indeed, getting a higher education is expensive, what with books, tuition, room, board, and those occasional lapses in intoxicated judgment and while Mom and/or Dad like to pretend they are an endless ATM, the truth is that once you leave the nest, taking all of your financial needs and whining with you, your guardians give up. They hope banks fill in the blanks for your institutional needs via aid and loans, while the experience of learning and discovering yourself will cover everything else...especially those "excess" items like food and fun. 
Below you will see the kind of ingenuity that occurs when pennies are pinched and belts are tightened. It's also a level of inventiveness that few of these student's professors ever seen.
Homework may come in on dirty and wrinkled up papers, but if a hungry physics major needs to get his Top Ramen on, a couple of ballpoint pens do make amazing chopsticks. Many schools outlaw actual appliances in the dorm rooms, but that doesn't mean a simple drip coffee maker can't become a bastion of boiling water (and recipes using same). It's all about being clever. It's all about being resourceful. Actually, it's all about being flat broke. As you will see, necessity is indeed the mother of some pretty insane inventions.