Anything cheap and economical with good AC. You're in college, you have better things to spend your money on than gas for something fast (other than your Miata).

Some cheap hatchback is my recommendation. You might be surprised how much junk you can stuff in the back of one, I helped people move and lugged entire engines around in mine.

I know you say no Honda.. other than possibility of theft, why? They run forever and sip gas, and the up-front and maintenence costs are cheap too. Sure, lots of them are stolen, but I want to see a statistic of how many CX hatches or CRX HFs are stolen vs. Sis, GSRs, Type-Rs, and Hondas that look like they have something meaty underhood. I'm guessing it's not the beater low-end models that are often stolen.

VW haters - a little over 20k on my '10 TDi, no problems yet. Sort of out of budget for this thread though.

 

Remember all that stuff I said about VW's TDI's being so great? In the past week w/ my Passat I've got a wheel bearing that started humming, my muffler fell off, and my timing belt is due to be changed. Lol... FML