NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- If you're thinking about helping your college-aged son or daughter get their first new car, your plate of options has never been more full.

Carmakers are crowding into the low-priced end of the market with brand-spanking-new models that offer serious competition to decent used cars.

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From among these, Money Magazine's Sam Grobart and I selected seven inexpensive cars we thought could make a great "starter car" for a college student or recent college grad.

We restricted our choices to vehicles with starting base sticker prices below $16,000. There is a surprising number of good choices, helped by the recent introduction of the Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris and Nissan Versa. (No, we didn't choose all three.)

We figured that, for these purposes, a car needs to get great fuel economy since college students or recent grads probably won't want to put all of their hard-earned cash directly into their tanks. Fortunately, that's not hard since cars in this range tend to be, to put it mildly, on the small side.

Functionality is also paramount. There are no sporty two-seaters or funky cars with no trunk space. These are conveyances you can actually use.

And, in spite of being small, all these cars are also reasonably safe as are most newer cars these days. For each car, we've listed some important available safety equipment that we strongly recommend you opt for.

See the gallery below to get the whole list.

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