Yes. In fact, until you know what software is needed to do a job, it is unwise to chose any computer. Sometimes the best solution is Windows, sometimes a Mac. I’ve always recommended choosing the best software and let that determine the hardware.
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It’s justified, needing a laptop. Excel/R/Scrivener/whatever pro apps academics need are never landing on iOS. This is my main reason behind looking to get a MacBook instead of continuing iPad life.
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Nah, get a Mac and virtualized Windows. Or remote into a PC if you have one.
Remoting into Windows servers as well as Macs and Unix machines was a routine part of my job. And I would occasionally do that from my old iPad 2. But doing that is beyond the ability of the majority of the users I supported. Most would frequently have problems using VMWare to run a single reporting application.
The vast majority of computer users don’t know much more than what is necessary to do their job.
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I will only use a B&W monitor connected to my vacuum tube computer. The picture it produces is deeper and warmer in deeply subjective and untestable ways that only a true technophile could possible understand 
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I can’t. And that doesn’t diminish the iPad or your experience in the least, but it does mean that there are some kinds of work that cannot yet be done on an iPad alone.
The university in question has determined that the computer configurations that they list are the ones that will work and be supported in their environment. I very much doubt that they’d reject work done on something else, but I likewise doubt that they’ll expend resources to make anything else work or provide support for anything else.
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This is a serious question (not intending it to be sarcastic): Do you think it’s reasonable for a university to commit to supporting iPads as computers that can meet all of a student’s needs?
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To be fair, this problem can surface with any browser that is one of “not Chrome” or “not IE/Edge” depending on the back end, and regardless of the platform. This is an enterprise IT stalwart. “Use the browser because it’s an open standard.” And at the same time… “It’ll only work on IE.”
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I teach computer science and app design and an iPad is absolutely not good enough to take my courses.
All the business students at my university take my programming course as well as Masters students, and if they turned up with an iPad they would be unable to use the IDE that we teach with. The classes are workshops, not just theory, so they have to code in class and while there are apps that can do some of the things for the class, the students would be unable to follow the classes as all the steps in the slides are for desktop users
For app design we use Illustrator, Adobe Xd and Java, which are impossible to use on iOS.
Plus, our LMS doesn’t work well with Safari. In particular, students cannot submit assignments and view results.
An iPad is a nice addition to a desktop for note taking and reference but for most university students it’s nowhere near a desktop replacement.
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Here’s an interesting mental exercise. Could your students use, say, an Ubuntu laptop? If no, is it for exactly the same reasons (or at least some of them)?
I think part of the problem is less about whether the iPad can and more about whether software vendors can be bothered. For instance, WordPress’s fairly comprehensive web back end works really well on iPadOS Safari. Didn’t use to, but does now, and there’s even an app. Affinity Designer is a very capable design app (of the same ilk as Illustrator) and it runs on macOS, Windows, and iPad with 100% functional compatibility. Swift Playgrounds, of course, started on the iPad and now runs on the Mac and is a highly capable programming environment (OK, not an IDE, but work with me here).
I get that there are many factors in choosing which software is used for a learning programme but it’s as much about software choices and software vendors as it is about the platform. Can an iPad be used to do coursework at a university? Depends whether they want you to.
A related anecdote: in my company, one of the IT support folk recently moaned about supporting Macs and cited various technical hurdles that “Apple don’t handle” well. I felt compelled to point out that our infrastructure was set up 100% with Microsoft products in mind both in the back end and on clients. Yet if you get a job at a wee company called IBM, one of the first questions you’ll get is “Mac or PC?” and the IT folk know that the Macs take less support effort.
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Ubuntu would be fine for the programming class as there is a version of the IDE we use for Linux. However, not the app design class (unless they can get Adobe Xd and Illustrator running on WINE).
I agree that it is not the hardware at fault, I use an iPad Pro more than a laptop when doing admin work as I love the form factor and iOS. It’s the software vendors that don’t want to play ball. For example the IDE we use is written in Java and this isn’t available for iOS - I’m sure it would be technically feasible. The same for Adobe Xd, it could run on iOS but Adobe won’t port the part of the app that lets you create prototypes.
It’s also an issue with web developers because the software we use for managing assignments (Blackboard+TurnItIn) refuses to submit on iOS Safari and students cannot view results as the page doesn’t render correctly. These would be easy to fix, but when we contacted Blackboard developers they simply stated that Safari is not supported.
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I prefer to ask the question about Chromebooks, as they’re cheap & ubiquitous. And much of the time, I’ve found the answer is “Chromebook, yes, iPad, no” - at least partially due to the fact that Chromebooks use a standard browser that hasn’t been hobbled or modded in some way for the expectation of a touch interface.
And obviously that still depends on whether the other necessary software runs on it. 
I had students turn up with Chromebooks to my classes, and it is the same as iPads: they don’t have the capability to use the software required for the course.
The students had to go and ask their parents to buy another laptop with MacOS or Windows.
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Right. Specific software is always potentially limiting.
The thing I’ve found, however, is that for most things where the limitation is just “mobile platforms like iOS don’t work”, the Chromebook is a highly functional option that bridges the gap.
Many, many things are browser-based these days - and the ones that don’t work on iPad do typically work perfectly fine on a Chromebook.
I absolutely understand though that Chromebooks aren’t the end-all be-all. I’m a web developer, and I wouldn’t want to have to try to do all the stuff I do on a day-to-day basis on a Chromebook. 
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We have to teach Android development because not everyone has a Mac 
If I had the choice, I’d teach Swift. Other intermediate languages all have too many limitations and C++ is too hard for the students I give classes to. In fact, we teach Kotlin, which is basically the same as Java but much more concise.
I also allow students to develop in Swift for their final project, if they prefer and don’t mind learning it themselves.
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I’m really hoping Swift’s Linux story continues to develop. It does seem like an ideal first language.
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For students who don’t do coding or anything technical, a Chromebook would be better than an iPad at my university because they would be able to submit their work and see their results. Safari on iPad cannot be used for this.
Nowadays though, almost all students do coding in some form. I teach coding on the Business, Law, International Relations and Communication degrees as well as Computer Science and Data Science degrees.
From what I’ve read Swift 5.3 is oozing out slowly and expanding distributions to support more Linux platforms, but as long as Apple keeps SwiftUI, announced in 2019, to itself and doesn’t port that, adoption on Linux (forget Windows, devs will always prefer .NET) will probably be limited.
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Definitely! For the purposes of teaching computer science concepts, I’m not sure that matters however. My university teaches Racket then Java both of which they created there own graphics and testing libraries for the express purpose of limiting the scope of learning outside of the concepts they intend to teach in the classes.