I think he should see what is the best offer that comes along. Now he needs a job, he should grab anything that comes along. People need money to survive and if his last offer was 4k+, I don't see why he can't take that job first.

Once he got the job, he should be able to start planning his next move. Personally, I don't believe too much on paper qualifications other than having a degree. I'm speaking from both a programmer and support engineer and I did switch between both these type of jobs without it affecting my pay negatively.

You never know that after you get into a company by doing support job, opportunity may open in programming/development departments where he would be able to transfer departments to gain better experience in doing development. With his experience in support, he can try to get into big companies as a support engineer and then later, try to change to the area of his interest if possible. If this is not possible with his current company, at least he can slowly take his time to find a programming job whereby he don't have to start with a fresh grads pay.

Now is not a good time to be choosy I guess. For me, I have a lot of bills to pay, so I can't afford to be choosy when I am jobless.