suburban is fairly ubiquitous so you're okay for anywhere.
The probable best course of action would be to start with your local or state office for tourism and cinema (or that of your shooting location. LM's advice is sound for finding your locale as you'd likely have to build it otherwise and that's going to be $$$.) as they often hand out grants for these sorts of projects. Each has its' own requirements and rules to qualify for grants or funding, but generally their goal is to get you to spend money in their state or location that will generate business, get you to hire local labor and to showcase their location as a nice location. As you're looking to make a student short, you're not going to be hiring much labor. However, most of these offices also run programs for first-time, small or amateur filmmakers, usually of a competitive nature or tied in to a local film festival meant to generate business and revenues.
I checked and you're in CT which is good because CT is making a major push to take film business away from NYC and the NYC suburbs and has put a lot of money into that effort. Their one general requirement for this sort of funding is that it's only open to CT residents and they prefer to fund by tax credit although they do also do some granting. Their web address is
http://www.ct.gov/ecd/cwp/view.asp?a=3880&q=454824. They also offer assistance in finding/scouting location. They also might be able to direct you to other foundations or organizations looking to fund CT-based productions.