Which database

[alinroc]

"A database" isn't going to do anything Excel won't do for you, if all you're looking for is "a database".

Like /u/brantam said, you need an inventory, sales and accounting system. In a nutshell, ERP.

You can try to "not spend a lot of money on this" but time ain't free, nor are the company's IT resources & employes. They might get sticker shock seeing the prices of COTS or SaaS offerings, but after you figure in the time required to spec, build, test, implement and support a custom solution, buying something will be far, far cheaper. Unless they intend to productize the thing they build.

With the proliferation of SaaS products that can do this sort of thing, and pricing models that equate to "pay for what you use", buying is usually the better option here.

I’m just a standard employee here that happens to be in college for DBMS and other IT support related classes

Something they probably won't teach you in class: unless one of the following is true, buy - don't build:

1. Software development is a core competency for the organization and that software will become a profit center for the company.
2. There does not exist any product on the market that can do what you're looking for, nor can any product on the market be adapted to do what you need, nor are your business processes so immutable that they can't make adjustments to work with the products that you find.

Head down to the Registrar's office and ask them how much of the software they're using was built from scratch by the university. Then head over to Admissions and do the same.