Is this surface right for me?

I'm heading back to grad school in a few weeks and have been told I need a laptop. (I have a desktop at home).

I'm looking at the Surface Pro (2017) 256GB i5 8GM RAM.

I'm wondering if this will be enough? I'm doing a Masters of Finance so Excel should be the most grueling thing run on it.

I guess my main concern is futureproofing it. If they had an i5 16gb version I'd get it.

I just want this to last 5-6 years, like my old MacBook Pro did.

Any advice is appreciated. Thanks