so he's a rootless young adult living in a moderately-sized city
by day he attends the state university, which is organized around free lectures + at-cost study materials for whatever studying you want to do with whatever study group you form, and then a separate branch that handles testing and credentialing for a more substantial fee
(right now he's at the stage of attending whatever sounds cool and postponing credentialing until he feels like a career change)
and then at night he sleeps at a men's hostel and boarding house which is structured a little differently from any I've heard of on earth
like many nineteenth-century flophouses there's a price tier for sharing a bunk; but there is furthermore a price structure for more targeted forms of bunk-sharing
Dylan, having earned a negative price tier, is essentially a professional cuddler