We got son a credit card on an account of ours that he uses for all his extras. He is responsible for anything he buys on it. Hubby sends him email bill at the end of the month and he mails us a check. I wanted him to get use to responsible credit card use. Hubby does have it set up where we get an email every time he uses it. His biggest expense is visiting his girlfriend at her college. He does have access to the online account also so he can see what he is spending as he goes. He is using earnings from his 2 summer jobs but has a part time job set up for next semester.
LI honestly think kids spend less after freshman year. living in the dorm they were always going out for coffee, buying things for the dorm, buying t-shirts and more t-shirts, wanting to eat away from the cafeteria. Now if I ask my D if she wants some shampoo or lotion, she usually says “I’ve got plenty.” I used to send one boxes of groceries and toiletries from Amazon, and she said she doesn’t need or want them anymore. They stay home more, eat at home. One still has the coffee habit, but the other has dropped her smoothie habit.
I pay for the part of tuition/room/board that isn’t covered by merit. I have basically covered their books unless they delayed and had to pay extra for them. My kids are super frugal so I will pay for things like shoes and coats and haircuts. D is willing to spend the tips from her summer job but is resisting transferring any of her hourly wages out of savings. I set up an auto transfer when they were in Middle School ($1 per grade, increased on the odd years). I haven’t figured out how to stop that for D, so she still gets $11 a week transferred into her account.I figure that covers toiletries or whatever she can live on that for months at a time. Care packages a few times a year might include shampoo or deodorant. Virtually all of our money transfers are done on line-I drop money into their bank accounts or cover stuff on Amazon. Every once in a while I remember to throw $20 into a care package.
I might start a thread on overly frugal kids. Both of mine hoard their paychecks. That’s ok, but I would like them to have a plan to spend at some point and not be afraid to splurge occasionally. I’m not the best model! 
I pay for room, board, tuition and books. DD has saving from her summer job. She has a credit card and the bill comes to me, I then deduct the expense from her saving account. She seldom uses the credit card as I closed it once. She normally covers her other expenses from summer job saving account.
We think it’s an excellent idea to get college age children accustomed to responsible use of charge and credit cards. Our D opened her own Target charge account and has already started to build her own very good credit history as she shops for incidentals she needs while she’s away at college at a nearby Target store and pays her charge card bills on time herself.
We also provided her a credit card as an additional user on my account for other expenses and online shopping with the understanding that it can be revoked at anytime for irresponsible use while it helps earn airline miles in my frequent flyer account.
Our D and I are also joint owners of a checking account that she has her summer job paychecks direct deposited into. I can electronically transfer funds into or out of the joint account as needed and she use a debit/ATM card for that account as well
Her college campus is very walkable, so she doesn’t need a car. When she can’t get a ride from the campus shuttle bus or friends to off campus locations, she uses Uber or Lyft to get around the local area.
We also send her an occasional “care package” containing locally unique items from our area that aren’t readily available where she goes to college.
We paid/pay for everything, but that wasn’t guaranteed. Each of my kids had a credit card, and I paid for all necessities that came through, and a reasonable amount of other things. Both of my kids were pretty frugal, so I almost never made them pay for anything. If there were excessive charges, I could have made them pay, and they knew if they didn’t check with me first they could have to pay, but it was never an issue.
Uber gift cards have been very popular gifts in my family.
We pay for necessities (tuition, R&B, meals) as well as things that have made our life easier or give peace of mind (uber; parking pass & gas to get home so we don’t need to collect from school every break). They are pretty good about knowing when to use our cc for needs versus their own money for wants, or to ask us which