The truth is, a Mac is probably best for most college students. I had to make my case for why my parents should buy me a Mac for college (in an all-windows family) and was successful. My dad worked in tech, thought the MacBook was overrated, and loved windows (at the time). A few years later my dad got my sister one when she went to college and again a few years after that when the other sister went.

He later told me “That was the best decision I ever made, you know how many calls I got about issues with their computers? Zero”. Contrast that with rebuilding the family windows computer at least once a year due to some virus/spyware/malware that was infecting it when they lived at home.

MacBooks also hold their value well and are well made (butterfly keyboards notwithstanding). They are great value for the cost. I paid ~$1,000 for my first Mac and it got me through college without issue while I had friends who bought the bargain bin windows $400-500 machine and very few if any of them survived 4 years, the ones that did had batteries that didn’t last or parts literally falling off them.

Things may have improved in the subsequent 15 years (I don’t think they could’ve gotten worse on the window side) but I still recommend people get a Mac unless they have some software that they need that can’t run on it (normally only specialized things). For most people and in most cases it really does “just work”.