I was going to suggest a Chromebook actually...
Do Chromebooks support Microsoft Word? I would think a college student will need to write a lot of reports.

Ron - Another suggestion is to buy a refurbished computer. Woot.com (owned by Amazon.com) sells a lot of refurbished computers and you can get a major amount of computer for a lot less. For example https://www.woot.com/category/comput..._cnt_cdet_pc_2