DPete27 wrote:What major is she interested in? New tech like USB3.0 is a life saver for me since I regularly transfer many GBs to flash drives and external hdds. (of course, then you need a USB3.0 flash drive or hdd to take advantage of the 3x+ speed increase)
The quoted laptop already includes USB 3.0
OP: I think that looks like a decent deal though I would upgrade the RAM to 4GB at some point. It is quite cheap to buy RAM nowadays and upgrade it yourself.
As a current college student with several friends in psychology major, I do think that a laptop is pretty much required and tablets and/or chromebooks won't do. Most courses in that field do seem to require reading or submitting Word .doc files or Powerpoint .ppt files and the Office alternatives can be a bit picky about opening them. LibreOffice seems to come close, but is not perfect.
So I think you may need to add the cost of office to the laptop price. For Office 2010, there is 3-user license Home and Student edition that typically runs about $120. Most students buy such a copy and then split it with 2 other students, making the cost about $40 per person. Some schools may offer Office at a reduced rate, so do check for that. Licensing costs for Office 2013 are very different, and I am not sure of those details, so do look them up.