[Scott Douglas]

Az911 has it right.
We helped our kids out by getting our son an Accord when he went away to school. I was willing to stretch the budget since he helped us by getting an academic scholarship and the baseball team helped with room and board. I told him it had to last all the way thru school (it had 156k on it when we bought it) and he made it last. He's out of school now and off and running with a good job (mech eng'r) and recently bought himself a new Dodge Ram to help with his home improvement projects.
Our daughter wanted an Accord too, but the first one we bought didn't work out for her so we looked and found a second one which turned to be a former certified used car. PO kept it as clean as I keep my own. She paid for it while going to school. Now she's off on her own and recently we found a Honda Civic certified used w/10k miles on it for her. She's paying it off and keeps it up beautifully.
If you're buying used, find a certified car since they have extended warranties that sure beat new ones.
It's also been my experience that kids who have to invest some of their sweat equity in the car tend to take driving them and keeping them nice a little more seriously than the ones that are just 'given' a car.
YMMV.