I'll be headed out west to go to school for the Fall 2012 semester and I really want to be in the Bay Area, but it's an expensive place.<p>Where are the cheapest places to live in the Bay Area? I won't have a car (I might invest in a road bike), so San Francisco is appealing to me, but it's one of the most expensive cities in the country, I hear.
San Jose downtown has decent light-rail and bus connections to most places. But, public transportation is PAINFULLY slow (e.g.,: it will take you at least 1-1.5 hrs to get to Mountain View from San Jose if you take light rail / bus, and upto 1.5 hours to get to SF via Caltrain). Otherwise, it's quite good. Milpitas, CA is also an OK place --- cheaper than most of the Peninsula and SF --- with good connections to most parts of the bay (east, peninsula, south).