I paid $2700/year for tuition, $295/month for rent on a basement apartment (this is Seattle, so even in the 90s rents were kind of high on something nicer), and skimped on food way too much.

Like I said, it was easier in those days. Dad paid my tuition, I paid everything else with a minimum wage job (and later internships, upgrading my apartment to a nicer university provided $425/month).

Doing the math, it was way less than $10k.