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Deal of the Day by Lisa Scherzer (Author Archive)
5 Best Cars to Buy College Students
JUST AS THEY DO over clothes and music, parents and teens often clash when it comes to buying cars. While affordability, reliability and safety are often top priorities for parents, teens tend to focus on more esoteric concerns, like "will this make me look cool?"
To help allay some of those tensions, the folks at Kelley Blue Book recently released their picks for the top new and used cars for kids heading back to school. Overall value was a top priority for cars making the list, says Jason Allan, road test editor for kbb.com. The price tag needed to be low enough (below $18,000 for new cars) so as not to make parents shudder when their kid leaves the back seat littered with gum wrappers and empty cans of Red Bull.
And while there are "very few unsafe cars put out on the road today," Allan says, safety features like anti-lock brakes and airbags also figured prominently. After all, the crash rate per mile driven for 16- to 19-year-olds is four times the rate of drivers who are 20 and older, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), a nonprofit that conducts annual crash tests of new vehicles. (See IIHS's most recent crash test ratings.)
Of course, KBB didn't forget about the coolness factor, which was gauged by how fun a car is to drive (think speed and handling) and its technological features, like GPS navigation and MP3 player compatibility.
We sifted through KBB's back-to-school favorites and picked the best in terms of value, safety, fuel efficiency, reliability and of course, that elusive cool factor. (For KBB's full list of the best new and used cars for students, check out kbb.com).
 View our slideshow to see which new cars made the grade. |
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The last car I bought was a Chevy Equinox. I would put it up against any foreign car around. Before that I had a Taurus and my son is using it to drive to college, he's pre-med and does not feel the need to be cool. Before that I had an Impala and that was also a great car. I have a Ford F250 and a friend of mine asked me to haul his b...(Read more of this comment)
To naervez375: So what's cooler than at least some of the cars on the list that still meet the criteria...economy class, quality, value, etc. AND under ~$15-20,000? I think you'll be walking, biking, or bumming rides from anybody unless you're willing to pony up $25,000+ for a 'cooler' car.
Should an American move to a poor neighborhood that has a bad public school to financially support that school even though they could afford a more expensive home in a better school district? Of course not. The failing government school should implement processes to improve education and not just throw good money after bad by pumping even more money into broken policies. They have to improve their product. In the same way if ...(Read more of this comment)
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You need to understand that if you continue to buy inferior products for nationalistic reasons, you're doing more harm than good. Buying American might make you feel good inside, but what you're really doing is sending a signal to the American car companies that they are doing things right.
If everyone starts buying cars based on good quality and pleasing aesthetics, it will certainly hurt the American car companies' bottom lines in the near term. But in the long term, they will have to change the way they do business and bring the cars they produce up to the standard of their competitors. That is the beauty of capitalism and if left alone, it will only help the American car companies.