I'm a college student, alternatives?

Spikuh

Given the choice, I would go for a hatchback everytime if its an S13 model. The coupe looks like utter trash in my opinion because the shape and "flow" of the car make sense until you hit the rear quarter-panels, where it appears they chopped off the remains of a great looking car and stuck on a dinky trunk and spoiler. (Given the spoiler is just as dinky on the hatchback model, but I removed mine )

Beyond that, I can't really make any sort of comparison, but I doubt you could really carry much more in one model over the other.

Speaking in reguards to the hatch only, it has more than enough room for 2 people and you can fit a 3rd full size person in the back if they stretch out over the whole thing. On a side note, I have actually fit 8 soccer players (including myself) into the vehicle with 8 school backpacks filling the hatch, so it has room.

Just in general, the layout of the interior is in my opinion pretty damn good. Cruise control is on the steering wheel with its large on/off buttons on the left side. It has a MASSIVE hazard lights button to the right of the steering wheel and the instrument cluster is very easy to read with none of it being covered by the steering wheel.

The center console is just as simple with large push buttons to control airflow, and AC and heating. It has 2 slides to control the air speed and air temp. All of this together makes driving very simple compared to many other vehicles I have driven. Can't give you much of an opinion on the CD/stereo as I replaced mine with a Pioneer CD player many years back and a little storage compartment to fill in the open space.

Umm....in case you decided to do something with the engine, you can definitely do an SR swap, although I personally feel a well built KA engine is the way to go for the extra torque, and deeper sound.

Hope this helps some.