The MacBook Air is probably all you need.

Yes. The Air is enough for most computer science students — and the Pro 14 is overkill unless you know you need it.

For anything a CS degree throws at you — code editors, compiling, running a few Docker containers, lightweight ML experiments — the Air’s M3 or M4 chip handles it without breaking a sweat. It’s lighter, cheaper, and has better battery life. The Pro 14 is heavier, hotter, and costs a lot more. Unless you’re doing heavy GPU work (CUDA, large-scale training, or serious 3D rendering), you’re paying for performance you won’t use.

That said, if you plan to run multiple heavy VMs, compile enormous codebases daily, or do serious parallel processing, the Pro’s active cooling and extra cores will help. But that’s a minority of students.

Your wrist and your wallet will thank you.