At DS's SMC, you pay a mandatory uniform fee the first year of about $1500 to the university store's military department, but you can buy many of the uniform pieces on Army posts. This is what my son did -- paid the mandatory fee, then bought about 2/3rds of his uniforms on base. Thus, about $900 of the uniform fee was "on account" at the bookstore, which he used to buy books (and probably a bunch of military gear for his company courtesy of me) for the first 3 semesters or so. ACUs are issued though. You don't buy those. They also issue Army combat boots but many cadets purchase a backup pair (within regs) to wear to class or for running or whatever.