Hi, and welcome to CVC. I think before we can make a recommendation we need to know a price range, age and mileage, and RWD vs FWD.
FWIW, and I have 2 girls driving older Volvo's one going in to third year the other first, I probably wouldn't send my daughter away to school in an older Volvo wagon. If you are looking at the 240/740/940 wagons they are now all around the 15-20 year old range with higher km's and in need of some work. You didn't say if you are capable/interested in doing your own work, and you will surely need to find a good indie Volvo mechanic wherever it is your daughter goes to school. I would say that the older RWD Volvo's are durable but not necessarily reliable, and like any older higher mileage car they will need work which if you have to pay for it becomes expensive relative to the cost of the car.
As a real world example of what I am getting at is the 1990 740 wagon that I currently drive. I bought in the spring of 09 off of a woman in Lethbridge who bought it for her teenage daughter because she always thought Volvo's were safe and reliable. She bought it off of a friend for too much money (some friend) whose idea of mtce. was oil changes, albeit very regular, and a few other issues as required. Shortly after she bought it began to stall, run rough etc. A local shop that used to have guys that know Volvo's spent a lot of time and her money trying to figure out what was wrong to no avail. At her wits end she sold it to me for $600 as it wasn't running at the time and that's what the local high school was paying for "project" cars. I jury rigged it enough to get it home where it promptly died and was pushed in to my garage where it sat for the next month while I researched what might be the problem.
Since then I have put in new shocks, a used A/C compressor which included converting to r134, a water pump and timing belt, new front brakes, new plugs/wires/cap rotor, a newer fuel pressure regulator, a new fuel pump in Osoyoos on holidays (f@#$!!!), new relays under the hood (the source of the original problem), new motor and transmission mounts, new battery etc. I still need to fix the heated seats, lumbar supports, all of the suspension bushings, possibly replace the turbo as I am going through some oil and it's not going out the pipe (I suspect the intercooler has more oil in it than the engine
), the heater blower motor is a bit noisy, the used A/C compressor isn't the greatest, and on and on.
In spite of all of the above they are great cars in their own way, but as they age I am becoming more of the opinion that they are more of a hobbyist car than something you want to send your kid off to school in. If you choose to go that route finding a good mechanic to work on it for your daughter is a must as a lot of mechanics can't seem to figure these cars out which is odd as they are relatively easy to work on for the DIY'er. Anyway don't mean to be a downer just wanted to give you my perspective from someone in the same situation (although my kids are at school locally) and with someone else's experience in how a parents good intentions went off the rails so badly. Also I have experienced enough of those "Dad, my car's broken" calls to last a life time and I still have 2 more years to go.
