If I were you, I'd take the gaming PC and then get a lightweight laptop, or a Windows tablet with a keyboard. That's the set up I've moved to in the last year since my laptop, which was my sole computer died. Built my desktop, which obviously lives in my student flat and then bought a Windows tablet which has a keyboard, which I can take into uni with me if I need to. I've found that I didn't actually tend to use my laptop that much, as I much prefer to take notes by hand. All I was using it for was group projects and sometimes filling the large gaps in my uni timetable at work when I couldn't go home in between lectures. As someone said above, a gaming laptop is likely to be pretty big and heavy. My laptop wasn't a gaming one and it was still heavy enough that I wasn't particularly keen to lug it around campus.
With the issue of it getting stolen or damaged, I'd actually say that's far more likely for a laptop, particularly one that might look high value. After all a laptop is easy for someone to slip in a bag - my desktop at least is a lot larger and harder to carry subtly. And since it doesn't move much, the likelihood of it getting damaged is pretty slim. Transporting it to/from home, which I do fairly frequently at the moment is the most 'dangerous' time for it, and as long as you take precautions like removing the GPU and lying it on it's side in a car, then it's fine. This is of course assuming will be getting to/from your home to halls in a car.