If any students are reading this and are a bit short on money, the thing that I tried was asking at the University the person that's responsible for maintaining

If any students are reading this and are a bit short on money, the thing that I tried was asking at the University the person that's responsible for maintaining the microscopes if they've got any old ones that are no longer in the system / written out. They might be old and maybe have some things broken, but it's much better then not having a microscope at all! When I tried this I got a very old german one, which still works perfectly, the only real issue with it is that it no longer has a light, but I fixed that by simply using my phone's flash and covering the flash with a piece of paper so that the light is diffused. I think this option is really good for beginners because essentially you're getting a professional grade microscope and because it might be broken here and there you won't feel that bad tinkering with it, which will in the end just result in you knowing your microscope much better! Also many things are standard, so you might be able to just get replacement parts if needed. Just an option, that you might want to check out ^^ This doesn't apply only for microscope, but for pretty much anything, many universities and companies have old gear that's no longer in use and is just sitting in storage, written out, that they'll happily give away. Including books! Especially at the university's library where they might be space constrained, they often just give old books away! At my unversity they have two tables infront of the library and on it they put books that you can take and keep. When I got my microscope, as a thanks I gave the professor an orchid and a black chocolate ^^