Cheap provider or DIY Hosting

Hi all,
I am starting a new non-profit business that is going to support students creating applications.
Money is very limited, if not non existent.

Students will be creating web sites and applications.

I want to create an environment where the will have local, and production environments.

I also want them to be able to use any technology they want to learn.

Is there a very cheap host that will allow this sort of thing or is the best solution to build my own web server that will allow this?

To clarify, I want students to be able to choose to build a website using PHP, mySQL, Python with Cassandra or ASP.Net with SQL Server.