My DW is an Apple fan as is my eldest child. Good hardware.
I on the other hand like cheap (but good) stuff. Look at eBay for a "Samsung NP900X Ultrabook" ~$200.
Skinny, lightweight, stylish. I have an i5 version and it is plenty fast enough to do any sort of student level work. I run some CAD on it although I'm designing machine assemblies on it, not aircraft.
Mine runs came with Win7, would run Win10 no sweat. I prefer to run Mint Linux KDE (free) on it except when I'm doing Solidworks in Windows. I upgraded the hard drive to a larger one after the factory hard drive died.
Maybe you can tell your college student that you'll kick in a limited amount of money for a computer and that they can come up with the balance if "keeping up with the Joneses" is important and you want to establish frugality as a notion.
You don't need a $1500 computer for college. That is just an expensive liability - stolen, dropped, spills, etc. No benefit to spending that much b/c the average student will not need the computing power.
Doesn't even need to be an Apple though I see the appeal. You can start out just fine with a $200 machine and handle it carefully. Mine looks good as new despite being 4-5 years old.
I have a second older business class laptop (Dell Latitude E-series, circa 2008, value ~$60) that is aging very well too. Definitely low on horsepower compared to a modern laptop but still Win 7 or Mint Linux (any Linux is fine), still can run office software, surf the web, emails, play music and movies, etc.
Avoid cheap discount store computers though. Flimsy construction promises they'll fall apart in a few short years. I'd rather have a used business class computer than the discount specials at the big box retailer. The business class machine is built with stronger materials rather than lots of plastic.
Thanks for the links to the Apple resellers everyone. DW is planning to get her Phd now and wants to upgrade her 2008? Macbook to something more recent.