Student travel to Istanbul, Turkey! Advice please :)?

There are about 6 of us (college students) that would like to travel to Istanbul, Turkey this summer (June) from USA. As you would figure, we are college students and travelling on a budget. The accommodation is not a serious problem for us, however, when we were looking for guided tours, we were shocked at some very expansive prices.

Is there anybody who could give us some advice, websites, or any info that could be useful for the students on how to do Istanbul on the student budget. Most of us will be going to graduate school next year so this would be one of the last vacations that we would do as a group.

We would stay for about 10 days. Nobody has ever been in Turkey before and we do not speak Turkish, though as a group we do speak English, Spanish and Bosnian.

Thank You ALL!

What about the good old guidebook? Sometimes even available at close-by libraries

Websites with tips für travelling in English aren't that hard to find. Just google for Istanbul and travel and you will find 1000s of them. wikitravel.org/en/Istanbul will give you some basics.

And oh wonder, a lot of turkish people, especially in Istanbul, are well educated and most of them speak English and other languages as well. They usually are polite and proud to help visitors to their country.

Nevertheless you should think about hiring a tour guide for the most important sights. They will not only tell you a lot of things you  wouldn't notice yourselves but they also might be quite helpful in buying tickets, getting you into the attractions without queueing for ages, showing you good spots away from the tourist traps.... They can be well worth their money.

To obtain their compulsory licenses (do not hire one without it) they have to absolve intensive training, many of them have a university degree in fields like art or history. So I think they deserve approriate pay.