To expound on the advice given so far... new and better camera bodies come out every 6 months or so. By the time your daughter graduates college, whatever camera body you buy for her will be worth a mere 1/4 what you paid for it. Conversely, if you buy a quality lens and take care of it, you'd likely be able to recoup 85% of its value if you resell it. In fact, I have lenses in my bag now that I could sell for more than I originally paid for them, thanks to high resell value and a bit of inflation.
While the XT was never "cutting-edge" in terms of its image quality and specifications, it's still got all the bells & whistles you need for an introductory and even intermediate photography course. I've photographed weddings with them and they did everything I needed them to do. Newer cameras do have more resolution, create much better images in low-light, the autofocus is faster, they shoot movies, and who knows - probably even keep your Facebook status current while you're in the bathroom. But none of those things are required to learn the art of photography.