There are are not many really reliable cars that many of us can afford to buy our kids and pay for school at the same time. A brick is about as good as it gets.

My two daughters got bricks in high school and drove them through the first couple of years of college 200 miles away. The only failure at college was when the '91 wagon lost a clutch. Fortunately it failed right in town and anyway, she had towing insurance. Cost me $900 to have an indy shop put in a clutch that never worked quite right.

I doubt that the clutch would have failed if she had not taught so many of her friends to drive a stick shift using that car. Her roommate was driving when the clutch went out (coincidence?).

We put over a half-million miles on those two cars combined, and the only times they broke down and failed to come home were:

The '91 lost a clutch
The '91 crank position sensor failed

Then there were a few times that they NEARLY didn't come home:

The '91 lost first and second gear (had to drive 100 miles home trying to avoid stops, put in a junk yard tranny at 175k miles)
The '91 lost a fuel pump relay (paperclip fix to get two miles home)
The '90 lost an ECU (paperclip fix to get one mile home)
Both lost starters, one at college, but bumping the shifter always coaxed them to crank until we got them home and put in new starters.
Both cars wore out alternator brushes every 125k or so that made the batteries and lights weak, but the cars made it home.

There are very few cars that go 20 years and 300k miles with that few serious failures.