The time has arrived. The youngster who has shared your home for the past 17-plus years is ready to leave the comforts of familiarity and embark on a four-year journey sharing a tiny room with one to three other teens.
Unless you plan on making regular excursions to pick up and drop off said teen, they’ll probably need a vehicle of some sort. This isn’t the time to be splurging on sports cars and lifted four-wheelers. We’re talking about safe, reliable transportation with enough cargo space to haul a semester’s worth of dirty laundry.
These are also used cars; we're assuming that you're not going to send Joe College off to school with a new vehicle. We recommend keeping your eyes open for used vehicles that are older with somewhere between 70,000 and 125,000 miles, a documented service history, and a decent set of tires.
We’ve compiled a list of recommended vehicles that hover somewhere around the $7,500 mark and won't cost a fortune in terms of car insurance costs.
The Best Cars for College Students 2024
- Subcompact Car: 2010–2014 Toyota Prius
- Compact Car: 2014–2018 Mazda3
- Midsize Car: 2008–2017 Volkswagen CC
- Full-Size Car: Ford Crown Victoria
- Compact Crossover SUV: 2014–2019 Kia Soul
- Midsize SUV: 2008–2013 Hyundai Santa Fe
- Three-Row SUV: 2009–2012 Ford Flex
- Hot Hatch: 2009–2014 Volkswagen Golf GTI
- Pickup: 2005–2014 Nissan Frontier
- Minivan: 2004–2010 Toyota Sienna
Subcompact Car: Toyota Prius
Price range: $4,500–$12,000
No matter where you live, you're likely to find dozens of Priuses available for sale. We’re recommending the generation sold between the 2010 and 2014 model years not only because it was an affordable car, but because Toyota sold more of these cars during those four years than it did any year before or since. The Prius reached its peak in 2012, selling over 236,000 units that year. You should be able to find one anywhere.
Unlike buying an economy car in the 1980s, you don’t have to reset your expectations to buy a Prius. These are well-equipped cars with excellent gas mileage loaded with standard features like climate control, power windows, and cruise control, even in the lowest possible trim level. The Prius is a great choice for college students because it provides stellar fuel economy, especially if the chosen university is in a city. The hybrid drivetrain is most efficient at city speeds, allowing the electric motor to do most of the work and return an EPA-rated 52 mpg. Best of all, your student will get the nod from all the progressive environmentalists on campus for their green vehicle.
Compact Car: Mazda3
Price range: $6,000–$20,000
There’s a pretty wide spread of prices here on the 2014-2018 Mazda3, and it’s because, at the newer and more-expensive end, we’re including the relatively rare, somewhat sought-after Mazda3 Hatchback in the Grand Touring trim, which was pricey when sold as a new car.
You’ve got two Mazda3 models to choose from here: a sedan or a hatchback. For college students, the hatchback is a nice score, but as we’ve noted, it's probably going to be a bit more expensive. You could also find either the sedan or the hatch with a six-speed manual transmission, but it’s not completely necessary. At the top of the trim ladder, these are hilariously fun cars, even with the six-speed automatic transmission, but even the lesser trims are pleasant to drive. For our money, they’re also among the best-looking small cars out there.
Midsize Car: Volkswagen CC
Price range: $7,500–$17,000
An unconventional choice here, for sure. Most parents are going to be seeking out the ubiquitous Toyota Camry or Honda Accord, or maybe even the Hyundai Sonata or Kia Optima, but far fewer will be looking for a Volkswagen CC.
Yet, it has a lot to offer. Unlike the more popular choices, the 2008-2017 Volkswagen CC is basically an entry-level luxury car. If VW had a brand analogous to Lexus, this would be one of the models. The CC is larger than the conventional choices, and it's a lot more pleasant to drive and look at.
The other surprising thing about the CC is how few people complain about owning it. You’ll find close to zero complaints in the later years. Part of that, of course, is due to the fact that there weren’t many around, but even among people who did complain about them, it was frequently an illuminated check engine light, which can often be quickly diagnosed by a good mechanic.
Full-Size Car: Ford Crown Victoria
Price range: $5,000–$9,000
When cars go to college, you have to figure it’s probably going to live a hard life. So, what’s the point of spending more than you absolutely have to? You also want something that’s going to be capable of putting up with some abuse, so why not choose something that was designed to withstand use by law enforcement officers and New York City cab drivers?
The Crown Vic is a throwback to a different era of automobiles when the assembly line would lower a body onto a frame, rather than building the body and frame as one. The world simply does not build cars like that any longer. If you can swing it, buy the latest one you can afford because they were better equipped than the earlier cars. This generation also had a bolt-in cast aluminum subframe that mounted the powertrain, an overhauled front suspension that provided much better handling, and a steering rack to replace the recirculating ball setup from the previous generation.
Compact Crossover SUV: Kia Soul
Price range: $9,000–$17,000
Again, big pricing spread here, but we’re talking about Kia Soul models sold between 2014 and 2019, so the newest should still feel rather new. The Kia Souls at the lower end of the price range are essentially the exact same vehicle, so find the cleanest one you can.
The Soul might be the ultimate college car. It's got everything: fuel efficiency, room for a few other kids when necessary, tons of cargo space with the seats folded down, a decent stock audio system, and plenty of room for personalization from the aftermarket. Later models even included features like adaptive cruise control, Apple CarPlay, and Android Auto.
Midsize SUV: Hyundai Santa Fe
Price range: $6,000–$13,000
Midsize SUVs are by far the most popular vehicle segment in the United States right now, so if you’re shopping for one for a college student, you’re going to be looking at one that’s significantly older, with higher mileage. That’s the case with our 2008-2013 Hyundai Santa Fe recommendation. You’re not going to find the current generation, and you’re not going to find the generation before it. To hit the $7,500 price point, you’re looking at a Santa Fe that’s around 10 years old.
Of course, these aren’t generally cars that have been drag-raced or beat up off-road, so you’re more likely to find one that’s been a good family car, and you may be fortunate enough to find one from a single owner.
You’ll want to look out for an SE or a Limited, with the 3.3-liter V6 and a five-speed automatic transmission. The common all-wheel drive (AWD) system is a stout Borg-Warner Torque Management setup, which should provide decent service for the (expected) four years of college.
Three-Row SUV: Ford Flex
Price range: $6,000–$27,000
We’ve recommended the Ford Flex to a lot of people since it arrived in 2009. Most drivers find they absolutely love them, thanks to their impressive passenger capacity, cargo space, and good track record for reliability.
If a student needs room to haul more than a couple of people, the Flex offers seven- or eight-passenger configurations. The seats stow nicely and provide a massive amount of cargo room. The Flex wasn’t what you'd consider “fast,” until the Ecoboost engine came along after 2012, but it's very quiet and very nice to drive. And in AWD configuration, it's nearly unstoppable in bad weather, even if you leave the all-season tires on all winter.
Of course, the Flex also looks like a Brinks truck. So, just strap a surfboard to the roof and roll with it. It's cooler than it has a right to be, especially if your kid happens to be in a band.
Hot Hatch: Volkswagen Golf GTI
Price range: $8,000–$15,000
Ah yes, the Volkswagen GTI used to be half the reason kids went to college in the first place. They were everywhere. Not so much these days, but the things that made the Volkswagen GTI popular amongst college students and recent college graduates in the 1980s still hold true. We recommend 2009-2014 models. The GTI is immensely fun to drive—especially in six-speed manual form—and it still offers great cargo space and practicality if you’re not wedded to using the rear seats. You’d be shocked at how much stuff—from soft bags to furniture—you can cram in the cargo area.
The 2009-2014 VW GTI is also safe. It had up to eight airbags, depending on the model year, and always scored well in Euro NCAP crash testing, scoring as well as 36 out of 37 points for occupant protection—very strong safety ratings, indeed. It doesn’t provide the safety features of a more modern car such as blind-spot monitoring or lane-departure warning, but wear a seat belt without fail, and you’ve got a really good chance of walking away unharmed in a crash.
Pickup: Nissan Frontier
Price range: $8,000–$18,000
Here’s a news flash: Nissan still builds the Frontier. In the dark days when companies like Ford and GM were convinced that nobody in their right mind would ever want a truck smaller than the USS Nimitz, Nissan sold tons of these creaky old pickups from the Pleistocene era. They were popular with people who wanted a pickup but wanted some hope of actually fitting it inside their garage.
Nissan has since redesigned the Frontier, but older models built between 2005 and 2014 still represent good value for college students. The only major issue these trucks had was transmission-related, and it wasn’t actually the transmission at fault. In trucks with an automatic transmission, the oil cooler runs through the radiator; when it fails the transmission fluid and the coolant can mix, which spells certain death for the transmission. A good shop can install an external oil cooler to bypass the radiator and avoid the problem altogether.
The other thing that might be a concern with the aged Frontier is its outdated safety features and slightly concerning safety ratings. If safety is of primary concern, you'll want to review the Frontier's performance in National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) crash tests.
Minivan: Toyota Sienna
Price range: $6,000–$11,000
Yeah, minivans are uncool. But try moving a drum kit in a Miata.
The second-generation Toyota Sienna, sold between 2004-2010, is packed with safety equipment like anti-lock brakes, brake assist, and traction control, along with plenty of airbags to protect passengers.
And here’s an interesting statistic: The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) collects all kinds of safety-related data beyond its own crash tests. For this generation of Sienna, the IIHS found that the death rate of Sienna occupants involved in crashes was zero. Not a single Sienna occupant died in multi-vehicle, single-vehicle, or rollover crashes in the 2008 or equivalent model year.
Note that the earliest models of this generation had transmission complaints, but by the time this generation drew to a close, those issues had been all but resolved.