Sure, if you have a long commute to uni or are carrying it around all day, the macbook air is perfect as it's so light and compact. But make sure you get a really good hardcase for it - That goes for any laptop but moreso for an Air.
A Macbook Pro will be more sturdy and take some knocks - the downside is the increased weight.

Mainly I think any choice will be down to what tasks you want to do with it / Apps you want to use and if there's any specialist software that may be part of your course that maybe only runs on PCs?

If you're an iPhone user, that's already a definite plus as it keeps everything in the Apple Ecosystem.

Macbook Airs may have a lot fewer ports than normal laptops, so you'll likekly need to purchase a little USB-C hub with USB / HDMI ports on it etc.

And my standard advice for any laptop would be always get it with as much memory (RAM) and HD space built in as you can to start with, so that it future-proofs it a bit. I think Apple pretty much make it impossible now to upgrade RAM etc. on the Air due to it being soldered to the motherboard (I just googled this :smile:

Also cost-wise, it doesn't necessarily have to be brand new. A well specced Mac that's a couple of years old (with an 'M' processor) should still be fine for most tasks / Microsoft 365 etc.