I think the most cost and time efficient thing to do is to make models as good as you can and as often as you can bear, and gather as much feedback as you can (for free) from communities like this. Experienced professionals will give you in depth critiques for free! Some of those schools might give you a big leg up on…
Simulating clothing from Marvelous is great to get the clothing to fit. After that you can add more detail using zbrush's simulation and cloth brushes. Clothing simulation does require a proper base model, so that's where anatomy comes in but with focus on larger anatomical forms. This is why the emphasis on smaller forms…