I'm limited to only my experience in the U.S. public school system (and two universities, one private, one public) but education itself seems to be a walled gar

I'm limited to only my experience in the U.S. public school system (and two universities, one private, one public) but education itself seems to be a walled garden. Curricula are set by policy, not by the instructor. Textbooks are pre-determined, and largely non-negotiable. Many classes mandate all sorts of closed software, sometimes begrudgingly allowing Octave in place of Matlab, for example. Many CS courses mandate a particular language, proprietary or not. And it's nothing new; when I was growing up, it was Apple ][ machines in every classroom. Even in my master's program, the layout templates for the thesis were provided assuming I was using Word. I had to parse them and mirror them into LaTeX so I could use the tools of my choice. I understand and agree with your concerns, but choice has never been a staple of the education system I've encountered. Perhaps it is different elsewhere.