Universities often have requirements for student computers in order to use their online or distance learning software and anti cheat/anti llm stuff.

Your first step is gonna be to figure out what that is so you can choose an operating system. The most sleek, trimmed down, hackerman version of windows 10 or linux isn’t gonna cut it if you can’t do your classes on it.

The next thing to accept is giving over control of your device to the university. It is often a requirement, separate but intertwined with their educational software, that you allow them to install at the very least a dns shim but often much much more in order for your device to be recognized as a student computer that’s allowed to access university resources.

Recognizing the above three points, you can’t have what you’re asking for.

You can’t have a “safe device” that’s “not monitoring you” when someone else is the administrator. And in the case of university students, your schools it department is the administrator or you can’t access school resources.

Your real, honest to god best bet is to have a separate device.

It doesn’t even seem like a very good computer, just buy one you want and use it to look at porn instead of the one the university paid for.