Windows 7 Professional or Home Premium?

I cant get Professional at the same price as Home Premium through a student discount. Which one should I buy? If Home Premium is faster than Professional (by way of having less features, presumably), I would prefer that, but it would be nice to have XP mode and remote desktop connectability. I have a pretty good computer (only a year old, 4 GB RAM) and the cost is not a problem because for me they're the same. I just want to know which is the better option. I can figure out the other specs of the computer if it's really important. Thanks!