Some advice please :)

Depending on what sort of University student you are as in major or area of study, many majors only require modest storage these days as many assignments are online or cloud based. In my era of college you needed more storage for outside things such as saving music as Spotify, Pandora and such was still coming to the forefront in 2007-2008. I would say it's about the one with the better processor. The RAM is sufficient. What is also beneficial is SSD or what is known as Solid State Drives which is becoming a Industry standard in many new computers. Although they sometimes offer less storage they aren't mechanical I believe and less likely to fail and WAY faster loading times. My computer right now is SSD drive and it's way faster. 

Are they the same price? Prebuilt? Why did you narrow it down to these 2? Will you need to save many files on it? Or are you more likely to need a faster processor? I would go i5, then if I need more storage space there are many external options available.

I would get better processor for now as that is not upgradeable whereas you can upgrade the RAM and storage later if necessary.

In my opinion, "Lenovo IdeaPad 3i, Intel Core i5 8GB RAM 512GB"--more options, personal preference.

Personally, if the pricess are fairly close, I'd go with the i5 with 512GB. It's more processing power, without going overboard.  It's also double the storage.  You can always add storage too, but 256GBs doesn't seem to go far these days. 

If you only need to browse the web and do minor work, either should be sufficient. 

-Cheers-

The Lenovo IdeaPad 3i, Intel Core i5 is the best option for you because of the core i5 .

Get a Yoga Thinkpad for the long run, imo.

The i5 varient. Better processor (if same generation) and has double the storage offering! Would recommend doubling the RAM amount to 16, other than that seems like a good laptop to start off with for school!

Probably more information regarding price / new/used status, would be helpful. But in general the Intel Core i5 8GB and 512 GB will perform better (and have longer lifetime)

If it is a current generation processor, I think i3, i5, i7 isn't a huge difference for what you are doing.  I generally go i5 or i7 since I don't like to go with the slowest of the current generation processor.    I always get 16GB of RAM because internet browsers such as Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera, etc all use a ton of RAM for open tabs.  This is what will slow down your computer the most.  Also, make sure to the hard drive is an SSD (Solid State Drive).  This will dramatically speed up accessing files on your computer and reduce battery consumption.  256GB seems to be enough as long as you aren't saving a bunch of videos and games to your computer.  But if you think you may use it for that, it's better to get 512GB now instead of having to hassle with upgrading the size later or getting an external drive.

I personally recommend the Thinkbooks.  i5 processor (current or last generation), 16GB RAM, 256GB to 512GB SSD