Everything there is awesome. The northeast side is my favorite place for student life. Stay away from the west side. East side is also semidecent. North and northeast are definitely the safest, lots of student, though it can be sort of rundown in places.
The downtown scene is awesome, with a diversity of bars, not just undergrad/underage bars. The music scene is incredibly awesome. I live in Atlanta now and often have to drive to Athens to see my favorite bands because they prefer to go there. In that same vein, ATL is only an hour or so south of Athens, so it's pretty close to everything georgia has to offer (no offense savannah).
It's cheap to live there. You can find houses for the price of apartments. Public transport is great, with a ugacard you can ride for free on their busses, and the athens bus line will drive you for free as well. Parking is very cheap if you buy a pass, but you must buy the pass to park on campus. Usually you can just take a bus to campus though.
Huge diversity in culture. But there is a very prominent alcohol culture, so be advised. Very strong academics though in the older age groups. Beautiful facilities, beautiful campus, awesome, awesome place to be.
Also, football is nuts. The town will go crazy EVERY Saturday there is a homegame. Parking will cost 50-75$ on these days. But they're a lot of fun. The biggest parties are on north campus, which is across the street from downtown, so it's hard to avoid if it's not your thing, but it can be done if you stay on the north side of town. In my opinion, embrace it. I don't like football, but I love to people watch. Dawgs fans are insane.
Best of luck to you friend, you'll love Athens, I miss it.
