I'm not an expert on this subject (though my wife was the top student in her corporations class in law school at the best law school in the country, but I digress), but many RE investors choose this method of asset protection.

I am a college student and definitely want to pursue real estate ASAP.

Tampa Orlando and Pensacola are considered good but competitive markets, Stay near universities too ...univ of Tampa and Fsu and FCU all good for student rentals

I am seeing that in general that the majority of college students do not have dogs, while many other applicants do have dogs.

@Mike Youngit can be, but like all real estate, it just depends on the dealWould you be doing student rentals?

Why has student debt gone up?

@Christina LangYou might consider Niche or Specialized Housing like student housing.

Last I looked, there were a couple of interesting opportunities in Tempe, but then you are dealing with ASU students, and a whole different set of problems.Good luck

You are missing the most important thing you can buy yourself,an education.You need to meet with professional wholesalers who have been doing this successfully for some time and ask them how they do it.Apprentice yourself to them for free doing their ground pounding work learning the business as a young college student intern would.Learn how to put together a large list of cash buyers and flippers who need the properties you find to sell them.Learn how to carve out a good territory to farm that has several homes sold in the last two years for top dollar prices and sold the fastest (less than 30 days).Learn how to use postal workers,utilities people,and others to spot bad houses that might be able to be bought cheap.Use high school students involved in sports teams or band to seed your farm with cards and fliers door to door at every property and give them a tax deductible donation to their groups.Promise them a bigger wad of cash if you sell a house they bird dog for you(tax deduction!).

They will use student loans to pay rent.