$1,200/month goes a long way in the bay area, too, if you have any idea what you're doing at all.
As a graduate student at Berkeley, I had my own room in an apartment with a roof deck and uninterrupted bay view for $400/mo on a month-to-month lease in a great neighborhood. This was 6 years ago, but the same guy was still subletting the same rooms for the same price, when last I spoke to him.
When I moved to the peninsula to work at Apple, I had a small house with a yard and fruit trees in the nice part of Menlo Park on a month-to-month lease for $1000/mo. This was 4 years ago, but similar deals can definitely still be found (the same house was rented for $1300/mo recently).
Up to a year ago, my wife and I shared a lovely house with 1.5 acres in Palo Alto for $1800/mo, though we did need to sign a lease for that one.
When I travel back to the bay area now, I get an airbnb-type room in Palo Alto, and don't typically pay more than $800/mo short-term. A lot of things are listed at higher rates, but you can often negotiate pretty successfully. It certainly doesn't hurt to ask.
The ridiculous rents that you hear about in the bay area are partially due to a genuine real estate crunch, but they are largely also due to people having too much money and not enough sense. Paying $1200/mo for a dorm is nuts, no matter what city it's in.