Have the timing chains and tnsioners been done? Those are probably the single biggest desighn failure of the 4.7 most of them go around 130-150,000 and a lot of shops will tell you to replace the engine when they start going, those that will fix em usually want $1000 or more. The plastic guides break off maintnance be danged, has nothing to do with it. We have one in the shop right now that looks brand new inside, 109,000 and the guides broke and let the chains go slack. You can not throw plastic in the oven and continuously slide a chain over it and expect it to last 200,000 miles. The guys who have done that are either lying or they should go out and buy lottery tickets.

Any small bit of overheating will kill the head gaskets, get it over about 250 and the heads will crack, not maybe, they will crack. Water pump or radiatr goes out and you don't catch it imedietly and you will be doing head gaskets, its about a 14 hour labor time plus parts and machining (heads will probably need re-surfaced) and again most shops will tell you to get a new engine.

Another thing to think about a college kid may not drive it on a regular basis, the problem is a cam lobe might stop with the valve all the way open, this can bleed down the lifter after a few days (the longer it sits the higher the chance goes up) when you go to crank it up it is missing and making noise even though it ran fine when parked, the rocker just falls right off as there is nothing holding it on, if your lucky you put the rocker back and go on with life (takes maybe an hour) if your not lucky it gets stuck in a bad position and the cam is forced up and breaks the caps or it can break other parts of the heads or bend valves, any of those scenarios involve pulling the head and sometimes replacing the head...

One more thing, might as well do those timing chains anytime the heads are off adding at least another $500 to a head gasket job.