Car's in America

Basically the story goes, im going to hopefully live in america as a student for a couple of years next year, I've gone on holidays there quite a lot and I know that without a car you're pretty much just F*^£ed over there.

So I think I went on to a site like autotrader like we have in the UK but the american equivalent( New Cars, Used Cars - Find Cars at AutoTrader.com (http://www.autotrader.com/)) and started to look at cars, I soon found out that cars in america are really expensive to buy. I didn't know what kind of budget I would need for a car, so I started to look at how much my car would cost in america( BMW 325i saloon/ sedan 2002 quite low mileage)
the price was something ridiculous like $13K. Plus the cheapest BMW started at 10K and those cars were a piece of s&*t, if I tried to sell my car in the UK I wouldn't get over £2K for it and I would be lucky to get £1800. So then I started looking at Audi A3s since my friend had recently bought one for £3K( pretty decent 2005 quite low mileage, all the bells and whistles you'd expect from audi) in the UK, again I looked at that site the equivalent nearing $16K and the cheapest one on offer was for $12.5K, ITS LIKE WTF, so then I thought it might be becuase its a german cars in america and the price of the import.
so I looked at Ford's since they are made over there, same story a piece of s&*t Ford I think that wouldn't go for £1K over here is costing near to $7k.

I need a couple of things answered:

1. WHY????
2. Does it matter what state you're in( Denver)
3. What would you recommend for a student with lets say $4K budget, what would be the best second hand car.
4. what makes are the best with a low budget in the US.

Thanks in advance for the help and advice!

Have patience my friend, there are always options. Unlike the U.K., it is a little further away to the u.s. and they are ( in my opinion) not as plentiful in the u.s as the u.k. With that said , there are alot of other vehicles that are good to choose from. How about a volkswagen or maybe a japanese car like a subaru? My buddy got a 2003 subaru impreza for a cool $900.00 and it needed only rear struts to go through inspection. My point is that there are diamonds in the rough out there and you just have to look around a bit more, but I understand that you might not have that kind of time. Hope you find what will work for you soon!