I would boot strap a rehab on your current place to boost the value and sell it to househack something that makes sense after you graduate.

Find a private or hard money lender to aquire, then refinance out of that loan once you have a renter in the place and can prove cash flow to a lender (the cash flow can be used to boost your income and therefore reduce your DTI)3) If you have equity in your personal home mortgage, get a HELOC and that, combined with your $65k savings, may be enough to do cash purchases in the market you're looking to invest in.4) Try speaking to a local community bank.

I have found Dave Ramsey's teachings to be really really valuable and he has influenced our conservative approach to RE investing.

Other than REIA's and your sphere of influence, how do you find and connect with Private Lenders?  

I have been working with a credit repair company to boost this but it is slowly working. 

Zillow, Realtor.com, etc)- Call your sphere of influence.

The risk factors essentially establish an almost worst-case scenario that influences cash flow. 

Sales/cold-calling experience, customer service experience, large database of people in your sphere of influence, etc. 

You have more influence in what happens next than you think you do. 

I have been doing a lot of research, learning and listening to learn about real estate investing in the past few years and it seems to me that your first property can really influence how quickly or slowly you could scale your business.