I would never buy a gaming laptop. Instead I'd buy a SFF PC

That being said, of course there are many cases (frequent travellers) for whom a gaming laptop makes more sense, but for someone just going between home and college every few months or a similar arrangement, a SFF PC can fit in your luggage pretty easily and will be more powerful and cheaper due to having more space to push out heat and being made from a collection of upgradable parts.

My personal pick for most situations that I described would be an SFF PC for the more intensive things like gaming, rendering etc, and then a thin and light cheap laptop with no dedicated graphics for your carry laptop.