What brand is this film camera?  All that glass may be compatible with
DSLRS.  As for developing your own photos you will need at least a tank,
measuring equipment, chemicals.  then either a quality scanner or enlarger
and a darkroom.  Oh yeah and paper.  Ok at college but quite inconvenient at
home.  Still if already second hand you won't lose so much money later.
What you will miss is the feedback.  On a dslr all the camera settings are
recorded.  Not only can you see what picture came out you can see what you
did right and what you did wrong.  If the camera and equipment isn't auto
focus you won't be able to transfer your experience to digital as easily.
Best give all the equipment details so you can be better advised.  No good
getting ahwole lot of lenses if there are only one or two good ones in the
bunch.

In my opinion film is, for all (ok ok, most) intents-and-purposes, dead.

In a learning environment we learn by doing something - evaluating the
response (feedback) - adjusting what we're doing - and repeat until we get
the results we want. To do this in a digital environment is easy - no need
to remember what shutter speed you used - or what F-Stop - or whether or not
you dialed in an exposure or flash compensation (etc) because it's all saved
in the Exif data along with the image, and additionally you can review your
results instantly. Using film by comparison you'd have to take many detailed
and time-consuming notes - send off the film to be developed - and then
review the results. If they're not what you were after, the opportunity to
redo them could well have long since passed.

I think you need to be careful you don't fall for the "self-fulfilling
prophecy" trap. I used to teach scuba diving - people learn to dive for
pleasure - the two biggest things that add to that are a warm wetsuit, and a
mask that doesn't leak - but people wouldn't want to spend hundreds of
dollars on buying a quality suit and mask in case they didn't like it - so
they get a cheap worn-out suit and a leaky mask - find that they're
miserable in the water because of it - then go away thinking "scuba diving
sucks - I'm glad I didn't spend hundreds of dollars on new equipment". Same
with photography - the bottom line is that a  good-entry level camera and
lens is going to cost a lot more than $200, but the results are worth it.

You get what you pay for.

Find the instructors for the courses and talk to them.  The courses may be
geared toward film or toward digital--if so then that pretty much makes the
decision.

Beyond that I have some thoughts but not many answers.

An "older camera from the '80s", assuming that it's a good model in good
working order, should work fine.  What it won't have is quite as much
auto-everything as a newer one.  Any zoom lenses will likely be slower or
not quite as sharp as current lenses--prime lenses from the '80s should be
fine--also you won't find extremely wide zoom ranges.

If you've never done darkroom work you may find it less appealing after
you've done it.  Black and white is easy and fun.  Color is finicky and
gets expensive very quickly.  Important question to ask yourself--is there
a room in your house where you can set up at least 6 feet of counter space
and have running water and a reasonably sized and shaped sink and no
spousal conflict in total darkness?  If not then setting up your own
darkroom is going to be problematical.  If your kitchen can be darkened
completely and if your wife isn't going to go ballistic and if your local
regulators don't get shirty about photographic chemicals in the drain water
then you're probably in good shape there.

Digital has several appeals.  The first is that most of the pro world is
headed that way.  The second is that you can easily preview before you
print.  The third is that additional shots don't put you out of pocket--you
can, for example, bracket any shot in which "capturing the moment" is not
at issue without using up a lot of film on shots that you _know_ you aren't
going to use.  The fourth is that a darkroom that can do optically and
chemically what Photoshop can do is, well, "high end" doesn't begin to
cover it.  Of course you can scan your negatives into Photoshop for editing
and printing but if you're going to do that you may as well start out with
digital.

The big downside of digital for learning is that if you don't use it
_carefully_ you don't learn--the fact that there is a cost (other than the
minuscule amount of electric power needed to charge a camera battery)
associated with even _seeing_ what you get on film can make you more
disciplined and think more about each shot, the downside is that it can
make you excessively so.

The advice used to be "start out with a manual camera and Tri-X" and I think
that was sound--focus, shutter speed, aperture, lighting, and composition
are the fundamentals--if you understand those you aren't going to go far
wrong.  Unfortunately there's no real equivalent in the digital world, at
least not at a reasonable price.  Any good digital SLR and many of the
better point-and-shoots have manual modes that are more or less convenient
to use, but most of them still have auto-everything options, and on many
the manual settings are far more awkward than they were with film cameras.
In that sense an older film camera has an advantage as a learning tool.

What does the local college suggest? The local Photo programs here at the
community colleges don't do film. They pulled out the darkrooms a year or
two ago. Their equipment list says the student MUST buy a Nikon D70s and a
Mac PowerBook.  Their is a good chance you may not have a darkroom at
school.

Get the school's catalog and it should to some extent make that decision for
you. No point in getting a film camera if they only offer classes in
digital, or vice versa. It's hard to imagine the same classes would cover
both. If you're going to start with digital, you certainly don't need to
start with a digital SLR. They cost a lot more money than a beginner needs
to spend on his first digital camera.

Yes indeed. Also film cameras nowadays have rapidly diminishing appeal (to
put it mildly), except to some collectors.

Developing and printing black and white is fun and educational, though it's
educational mainly about a technology that just doesn't matter much anymore.
Processing color on the other hand (absent very expensive machinery) is a
real chore, and since digital color photography is both far easier *and*
offers much more creative control over the finished result than film does,
it's hard to see why anyone today would want to take up color photography on
film unless they had some special reason, like a need to make slides.

Since you already evidently have a computer, you already have at least
90-95% of a digital "darkroom." With digital you won't have an enlarger to
buy, or easels, or trays, or developing tanks, or chemicals. At first you
won't even need any software other than what comes with a digital camera --  
you can get more advanced software when you're ready for it. Almost any
decent inket printer will let you make good 8x10 or letter-sized prints, and
4x6 prints you can make for pennies at your local Wal-Mart machine or
whatever.

It's true that starting out with film (as most of us did) is likely to teach
you important things about exposure and composition. Most of that carries
over at least somewhat into digital also, though not all of it does in
exactly the same way. But the fact remains that whatever is important in
digital, you can learn in digital.

Jack

I'd suggest that before making any decision you should check with the
instructor and see what type of camera he requires for the class.  If
the class requires a film SLR then the decision will be made for you.

BTW, the last time I took a photography class in collage about 10 years
ago I used a Canon FT-QL from 1966.  Which was fine, seeing that my
instructor wanted his students to control the focus, depth of field and
exposure manually so we would learn how to do it instead of just relying
on the cameras software.

ALV

If you want to go with film, get a medium format. That's a real
advantage and something that will continue to have benefits. For 35mm
digital is pretty much the way to go except maybe with B&W film. MF used
should be fairly reasonably priced. For digital get a cheap DSLR body
and a fast 35mm fixed focal length lens. The classic 50mm prime is like
a telephoto portrait lens on a cropped frame DSLR. The only thing you'll
really miss on a cheap DSLR is mirror lockup and the dim viewfinder but
a fast lens will help with that. A used 20D or 10D will give mirror lockup.