My D had to get by with a friend’s old MacBook when her PC laptop died and dried the hard drive. S just went and bought himself a desk top with two monitors when his laptop started acting up. Both of my kids had sone warning things were amiss and able to save most data to hard drives.
They taught themselves to troubleshoot for themselves. It took maybe a month or two to get full refunds after both laptops died.
Neither of my kids bought laptops recommended by school and weren’t aware of any discounts they may have been able to get but were satisfied enough.