When I was a student these are the things I wished for:
- lightweight laptop
- long battery life + quick charge
- laptop with stylus and OneNote - I preferred to type my notes during class but often you have to draw a diagram. If most of your notes are on the computer but you have to use paper for all the accompanying drawings, it screws everything up and you might as well just do everything on paper. So get a laptop with an active pen for drawing. You can type notes in OneNote and add drawings seamlessly to the side and the notes are automatically synced to all devices like phones and such, so you never lose a thing even if your laptop dies. And if it's not comfortable studying your notes on a screen, you can always print off your notes and recycle later.
I have a Lenovo X1 Yoga 3rd Gen which might be a bit out of price range but hear me out:
- lightweight
- drop tested to high specs
- SSD, integrated GPU, dual channel DDR good for anything that might require video editing or 3D design
- easy dual-boot into Linux for programming
- active stylus built-in and can be used for OneNote for typing notes and drawing at the same time
- can be used as a tablet
- great keyboard
- good battery life with fast charge, charges via USB so even a battery bank can power it
I would advise against a Microsoft Surface simply because they don't survive drops very well and they are constructed such that repair is very expensive (very tight tolerances and glue everywhere).
IMO the ability to type and draw notes at the same time is the most important, along with battery life and durability. Anything with an SSD and Core-whatever will be totally fine for anything a basic student would need. Dual channel RAM, fast CPU, fast GPU are only needed if their major requires that kind of oomph.