InDesign or an alternative (iPad - I’m honestly stuck)

Besides there being no real alternative to a desktop system (as opposed to any kind of mini-laptop or pad) for publishing work, nothing will accelerate your learning and productivity like a fairly large display. Whether Mac or PC, laptop or desktop unit, a 27" 4K monitor is a very cheap investment in being able to have a big, useful window on all the components of doing publication work. You're better off with a lower-cost monitor of that scale than an expensive, "graphics grade" one of smaller size, at least until you're a pro.

Hi @ChaosHatter:

Have you checked to see if your University has student pricing? Both of my kids took advantage of those programs while in school. 

~Barb

I agree with @BobLevine 

A decent PC laptop would be far cheaper than a Mac.

The software is exactly the same bar a few shortcuts. 

Your professor says you need InDesign - but you are looking for alternatives - there is no alternatives if your projects are set for InDesign.

There are places that allow you rent laptops -not sure if this an option for you.

Certainly, when I was in college the computers were supplied by the college, no laptops (powerful enough) back then. But I didn't need to do any 'homework' and wouldn't have been able to anyway as I didn't have a home computer. 

My suggestion would be to buy a mid-range laptop PC version which is far cheaper than a Mac. 

It would do you for your assignments and studies. 

Even a 2nd hand one. 

Or if it's really problematic talk to your college/professor and ask them for advice and if there is any help from them. 

All I can offer is a bit of sympathy.

You're going to need a decent laptop to run InDesign and a reasonably powerful one for Photoshop and Illustrator. These are industry-standard tools and while there are alternatives, you said right up front you need to use InDesign. I'm not sure why you're "feeling a bit screwed" because nobody lied to you about being able to use an iPad for this.

Even the Photoshop and Illustrator iPad apps don't come close to the power of the desktop versions.

Do you have home PC somewhere? You can try to remote work through some program like AnyDesk, but this will be not so easy.

Therefore, I do agreeable with Adobe Engineers, let's all InDesign for tablets fire in hell. This is not a software for phones and tablets. Try some another soft like Figma or Illustrator if you have not so complex layout for a few pages.