Lots of good suggestions here, from people much more experienced than I. I’ll go against the grain a little, though, and try to steer you away from digital. I’ve been resisting the urge to move to digital myself, as I just can’t get over the feeling that it’s cheating somehow. 
Finding a class in your school or in the community that will introduce you to basic camera mechanics, and give you some development and printing experience will probably be quite an eye opener. For me, half the fun in photography is the process. Composing the image in the viewfinder, clicking away, and then having to wait hours, days, or even months can really help discipline your process. Learning how to adjust your film development for grain, contrast, etc makes you think about the lighting before opening the shutter. Finding out after you examine the negatives that the shots you thought would turn out best were out of focus is aggravating, but next time you’ll check the focus first, and eventually you’ll stop forgetting.
Digital is the coming age in photography, but sticking with film while learning the basics will help you avoid the bad habit of a shoot-and-delete mentality.
If price is a big concern, film bodies are still much cheaper than digital bodies. If you want to really learn the mechanics behind photography, rather than just the composition, you’re probably going to want something more advanced than a point-and-shoot digital camera. You’ll want something that lets you set the aperture and shutter speed. You’ll also be missing something down the road if you don’t get used to thinking about different focal lengths and how they change the image, so you’ll probably want something with interchangeable lenses. The standard camera type that offers these features is SLR. An entry level film SLR body will cost $200-$500 (for AF), where an entry level digital SLR body is $800-$1500. Most lenses that work on a film SLR will work on the same make of digital SLR, so you can always add a second, digital body when you are ready.
Now, the best way to get good at photography is to take many, many pictures. Eventually you’ll figure out how to capture your mental image of a scene. Looking at other peoples photos (or any art, really) will help you figure it out faster, but there’s no replacement for experience. If digital will enable you to gain the experience, and the hassle of film would hold you back, then go digital. You’ll be missing something, though, and won’t be able to relate when us old fogies are sitting around talking about our favorite emulsions.
You might want to check out www.photo.net. The forums there contain a lot of good information, and you might even be able to pick up your equipment on the cheap from their classifieds.
– On preview, I see you brought up the darkroom, and also the media cost. You can get all the necessary equipment for developing your own B&W film for well under $100, and with a changing bag you don’t even need a dark room. If you want to set up a B&W darkroom, you can do so rather inexpensively also (a quick guess would be $100-$200). Once you’re set up for this, it becomes much cheaper to use film than if you had to take it to a lab. Of course, this is if you like B&W. As for the piggy bank draining on every shot, it’s not all that lopsided toward digital. Developing myself, I figure I spend about $3 per 36 exposures. Compare this to hard drive, CD, and digital media prices and you’ll find you can take and archive a lot of photos before you break even on digital.
GL, and have fun. It’s a great hobby, and some people are even lucky enough to be making money at it.
Barring any other book recommendations, I suppose I’ll give ‘Photography for Dummies’ a readthrough. :smack: