Here's a screen shot of Jasc Software's Paint Shop Pro, and a
link to a thread on this site where Cynthia mentions she created this whole website using that program. At the time she started that thread, you could buy PSP through her link to Amazon.com for something like $45 with rebates.
Paint Shop Pro seems to offer all of the features I've ever used in Photoshop, at a substantially lower price. I think on the Jasc homepage, you can even download a trial version to explore its features yourself.
The other option open to you is that Photoshop is available in a teachers/students version (it is the full version, by the way) priced at around $180. And of course we're all students of art, aren't we?