The car will survive if you treat it well, even if you boost it. As for resale value, it probably will decrease with more mods unless you find someone who wants to buy a modified car, in which case you might be able to sell it for a little more.

At this point, you might as well work on the car you have now. The reason most people buy new cars when they graduate college is because they suddenly have a five figure income (hopefully), whereas for the previous four years they'd been shelling out money. So really, you should be able to afford a new car once you graduate college, if not immediately then a year or so afterwards.