Also try Freecycle.com in your area as well, never know what's being given away..
You don't NEED your pot to be SS, in fact many of us use aluminium with no issues like turkey fryer, and it's usually far cheaper than the SS ones. But I got a cheap 5 gallon SS pot for under 10 bucks at Dollar General which works great for Stovetop brewing including PM's and 2.5 gallon All Grain batches.
You can ferment in Anything, it doesn't need to be a carboy...the cheepest is any foodgrade plastic bucket that held anything BUT pickles, such as the frosting buckets many people get for a buck at the baking department of any big box store like Meijers of Walmart. You can also use regular ole 3 and 5 gallon water jugs like the one's from absopure, just try to get them with a <1> or <2> on the bottom.
Airlocks usually cost about 2 bucks apiece so that;s not really an issue if you've just saved 15 bucks on a fermenter by using a bucket, but you could skip the airlok altogether and rig up a blow off tube.
You can get a lot of miscelanaeous stuff like strainers and cheap scales and measureing cups, and big spoons in the kitchen section and hardware section of most dollar stores much cheaper than at you lhbs
But honestly if you're brewing on the cheep don't think about words like Stainless Steel, think it terms of "what works and costs me the least amount of money"
It isn't the tools that makes good beer it's the brewer, you don't NEED the fanciest ass stuff to do it. Charlie Papazian is the king of cheap brewing gear. In fact rather than one of those fancy dancy barley crushers, that many on here say you "HAVE TO HAVE." he gets 87% efficiency from the same 20 dollar corona grain mill that he's been using for 30 years. He uses two plastic buckets one with a screen in it as his mash ton.
If you learn to make fantastic beer while poor and in College with "junk" you cobbled together, you'll be able to really appreciate the day when you're out of college and can buy the latest brewing gizmo...of course by then you MAY relaize you still don't really need them.
I'm sure CHarlie Papazian could affors all the toys he likes, yet he makes great beer with the banged up pot, buckets and corona mill , andappears quite happy with them.