Sure but in reality most if not all educational institutes that I'm aware of have Matlab licenses, it's what everyone in that particular field uses, and it's be

Sure but in reality most if not all educational institutes that I'm aware of have Matlab licenses, it's what everyone in that particular field uses, and it's better to publish something with Matlab code than nothing at all which is I guess the alternative (it's a means to an end after all). I can imagine this will change in the long run, but right now there are many valid reasons why people use these tools.