Im purchasing a MacBook Air for my college student. Do I need to urchase Parallels along with the Microsoft Office Home for students?

As has been mentioned by others, using native macOS apps is a better way to go.

Also, if you are getting the Student an Apple Silicon M1 based Mac, then it will not be easy to run Windows in Parallels (not impossible, but very non-trivial, as you have to get a hold of the Microsoft Surface tablet version of Windows that is compiled for the ARM instruction set)

If you are getting an intel based Mac, then you can run Windows in a virtual machine. But you would also have to pay for a Windows license, on top of the cost of your virtual machine (Parallels, VMware Fusion, VirtualBox), before paying for the Windows app. Much better to just get a native Mac version.

If for some reason the student needs to use a Windows ONLY app, and you get an intel based Mac, then you may be able to use CrossOver to run the Windows app without needing a virtual machine and a Windows OS license.

It might be better to explain what degree the student is attempting to obtain. That may indicate the kind of software that might be needed over the next 4 years.

You can use the Mac version of Microsoft Home for Students without Parallels. It is designed to run on Macs.

I'd hold off. Many universities utilize Office 365 with student accounts. Your student may want to inquire of the IT department or the Admissions office

You can use LibreOffice (free) (Office compatible, and works better than Office at some Office-related tasks), or the Apple iWork Pages, Numbers, and Keynote apps (free) if you’d prefer (which can read and write many Office documents), or purchase an Office 365 subscription when you need to use Office for something, and some schools use Google Docs online, too.

LondonAlexis Said:

"I'm purchasing a MacBook Air for my college student. Do I need to purchase Parallels along with the Microsoft Office Home for students?"

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It's Circumstantial: You might need to purchase it, if you need to run Windows-only compatible software. I run MS Visual Basic and MS Publisher on a Windows XP Virtual Machine.

If you specifically need MS Office for school compatibility reasons, Office 2019 for Mac runs very well on the two iMacs we have it on.