Issue is once you drive a nice car for a while it's hard to take a step down. Love my Golf GTI, wonderful car to drive and loads of fun. Also best manual gearbox I've ever driven. I know, VW has a questionable name for reliability, and running costs. But, it's only had a few minor issues (a short killed a tail light a few times and PCV valve to the turbo - known fault - broke) in 5 years and is otherwise in perfect condition. And, I have a friend with a 5 year old Yaris and the once a year service for the GTI has, over the 5 years, been cheaper than the twice a year service for a Yaris (both manual, admittedly the DSG servicing is a killer for the auto GTI).
How's that relevant to the topic?
Wife is getting her license at an older age (late 20s), and I recently got her a car to destroy - $8k for a 2004 Golf Sport auto in decent nick (just had timing belt, etc done). I actually considered a Corolla and i30 as options. And I can give you an awesome reason to avoid them for your first car, and why I ended up just spending $8k on a car I initially wasn't interested in.
Because it's your first car. It's going to get destroyed. Expect it. Buy a shit box, replace it with something decent.
You can get a $14k three year old i30 with the aim of it lasting 10 years (yes, I considered this), or <$8k shitbox. You won't care if the shitbox gets all scraped and banged up, but you'll care if you scrape up that pristine i30 (which is admittedly a very nice car).
The best part is, for $8-10k you can get a pretty nice 8 or so year old car, just be careful on the mechanics. The Golf Sport we got was a bargain for its condition (and just 93k km!), but even so, I'm expecting some unpleasant running costs at some stage as things start to fail. (Knowing your car models is good - the Golfs had aircon issues for those models, which has already been fixed, for example.)
If you only want something small, you can get an Audi A3 or Alfa 147 from the early to mid 2000s which are damn nice cars inside but, especially in the Alfa's case, will be frigging expensive to run. Holden Astras are another option, probably the older Euro model. Personally I'd stay away from most small Fords and Holdens, knowing people who have had miserable experiences with them. Actually, I'd stay away from some of the bigger ones as well (I drove a 2 year old Ford Falcon XT for part of this year, and I swear it's close to the worst car I've ever driven).
As for the Corolla, sort of a bunch of meh. Bulletproof comes at the price of uninspiring dynamics and middle of the road interior (they've slipped in both of these areas compared to the competition in the last few generations). For the wife this was fine, but the bloody things hold their value like no tomorrow, making an older Corolla similar price to a 3 - 4 year old i30 with the i30 being nicer to drive, nicer interior, and having loads more features (like power windows!), including safety features making it a safer car to boot. If I didn't opt for the shitbox approach, I would've gotten an i30.
When I was test driving stuff, I came to the opinion that 9 year old Corollas for $10k+ (Ascents or whatever the base model is that comes with next to no features) with average dynamics is only good if you want to drive the thing into the ground for the next 10+ years with no regard for driving experience, as, say, opposed to the crap it will take from a new driver. Ditto for buying a new one.
PS Secret to getting a good bargain for a good car is finding those very keen to sell quickly for a good reason - e.g. relocating for work, or just got given a work car and have nowhere to park their old one.
TL;DR A lot of biased drivel.