Well, ATMs all over the world accept US cash cards, so why do you need to move the money at all?

I travel internationally for business and never have a problem using my ATM card overseas. You could deposit the money in his account and then he can withdrawl the cash as needed.

One possibility is to see if there is an American bank that does business in Germany that will allow you two to setup an account in the U.S. that you can put money in; then have him open up another account once he's in Germany that it can be linked to. I have a daughter in Canada, and she uses a Canadian bank that has a U.S. affiliate. This works, although it's cumbersome because the U.S. affiliate isn't a local bank, and they charge for international transfers.
It would probably be easier for you to deposit money into his U.S. bank account and he can withdraw it with an ATM card. You don't have to be on the account to deposit the money, and, if he's had trouble in the past, you shouldn't open up a joint account with him, which will mess up your credit if he messes up. You could, however, tell him that you want the account setup for online access so you can logon and monitor what's happening.

We used to live in Germany but we had the luxury of using the banks on a US Army base. However, I seem to recall that using a credit card usually gave a good rate of exchange (not that there are any very good rates these days since the $ is low against the euro). So it seems to me that you could open an account at any bank stateside and he could withdraw funds with a debit card from the numerous ATMs and get a pretty good exchange rate. You could set up a way to quickly deposit funds into his account without being on his account it seems to me.

The only drawback I can see to this plan is that there are limits to how much can be withdrawn on a given day; to pay rent he might have to withdraw over the period of a couple of days. He might want to call a German bank and get some advice straight from them. Most people use their German bank account to pay all their bills. They set up automatic withdrawals for rent and utilities. If the American bank could transfer the funds monthly to a German bank that might work out even better. We kept a German bank account for our rent and utilities, but we had to make a manual deposit each month. They all speak English, or have a colleague who does.

Does the school he attends have a co-ordinator for the year-abroad program? It seems that might be the place for him to start.

Him, not you. :-)

I told him to talk to the program co-ordinator. He did and apparently Bank of America is affiliated with Deutsche Bank in Germany, and he will be able to use their ATMs with no fees. I think I'll look into getting Power of Attorney for his finances in case something needs to be done here while he is there. I don't like the idea of being on the account with him.