With the back to school deal and student discount, I don't even know if you would be saving much money with that HP.
For me, I recently migrated to a 13" MBP because I wanted to try something different. I like the Apple OS (it has some excellent features for my field of study), physical design (I am an industrial design enthusiast), customer support (stores + applecare), and excellent apps (especially in my field).
You might want to think about how you will use it at school, and then you can determine better if you'd benefit from a Mac.
Here is some of the stuff I use.
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/12565753/
Here is my workflow.
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/12564519/
Here is my organizational system.
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/12580806/
Of course, everyone has their own system. This is one that happens to work well for me, and the Mac fit a lot better into my workflow than Windows. Perhaps you'll find the MBP to be a good for your needs as well.
It's $540 cheaper, with better screen res. It's basically HALF the price of the Mbp 12". Ridiculous. So what's the student discount, $1099 - and a free 8 gig iPod touch if you auction it is worth what, $150-200?
Apple screwed the pooch with the screen res of the 12". It's pathetic that their netbook has better resolution. And yes, the 11" air is a netbook for all intents and purposes. It doesn't bench much faster than a dm1z, if at all, and again it's
Twice the price.
There are some great apple machines, but they are using it with the 12" Mbp. I'm as much of an apple fan as the next one here, but it is flat out expensive compared to pc counterparts, and runs hotter, and has a lower screen res.
The apple tax had basically vanished for a while, but it's back full force now.