My best recommendation might be a bit odd, but here goes...

Can you put a POWER "base station" of sorts in your dorm / apartment and use a low power secure terminal, like a corebooted C201, to access it over an encrypted link?

I've done something like this when I had to travel last -- was able to maintain a stable link back to one of my POWER machines so the lack of local computing power on the laptop didn't matter. Really hate that Chromebook touchpad though. ;)