For students, I recommend to enroll in United College Plus. UA will give 10K graduation bonus miles for each level/degree (i.e. bachelor's, master, doctorate/Ph.D) with mail-in transcripts. Not sure if they still offer bonus incentive with volunteer/community work (like 500 hrs or something). I believe Chase/UA offers credit cards to college students as well. Much smaller new account bonus (2K miles or something). But it may just work for young students without credit history to start from somewhere.

Go to our UA Forum and search for college plus, you'll see some threads that I personally had posted in.

Too bad there's no active MP refer-a-friend bonus promo that I am aware of right now. Otherwise, I could refer your daughter.

Our own pgary's website referenced in post #3 does have sections for students. You should check it out (or have your daughter check it out). It sounds like she's a FTer-in-the-making. She should start reading FT herself!