NVIVO, MAXQDA, and Atlas TI all have student discounts. I believe they are all $99 for a two-year subscription as they all compete for the same customers. I personally prefer Atlas TI, as I find it more intuitive to use. But, you might not need software depending on your amount of data and the type of analysis you are doing. And, if you do need software due to the size of your project and/or the sophistication of your analyses, you might consider asking your university to consider funding it. I've heard many students talk about quant programs like SAS and SPSS being provided automatically, but no qual packages - see if they can provide some parity!
I don't have any experience with free qual packages, but I have heard folks mention QDAP and QDA Miner Lite. I can't speak to their usefulness or ease of use though.
