What would the community recommend? His needs are simple...mostly B&W papers. On rare occasions he needs to print a paper with color photos/graphs embedded. Not looking to spend a lot, just enough to satisfy the requirement.
I wouldn't buy a color printer at all. I assume, every decent college has some sort of print-shop on the campus where you can make high-quality color printouts for pennies. For black&white, I'd buy a decent laser printer. Personally, I don't own a printer anymore since finishing university - I print everything (usually a couple of pages per month) at work. If I'd have to buy one now, I'd look for an appropriate Brother model. They seem to have decent support for Linux.
cheers, Rainer