1) Matlab is awesome for scientific computing and simulations. 2) Many Matlab users don't write any code but scientific code. They couldn't care less about how

1) Matlab is awesome for scientific computing and simulations. 2) Many Matlab users don't write any code but scientific code. They couldn't care less about how flexible python (or other language) is, when they already use and know Matlab. 3) Matlab doesn't make money from colleges or grad schools, they make money from industry customers. Of course the engineers and scientists of those deep pockets get trained at colleges and grad schools. 4) If you can write python, c++, or javascript, and if you keep publishing scientific code in that language even when Matlab is better suited, then it is possible that others will come with you. I am rooting for you. Just so you know, depending on the field, if you published your code in Matlab or R or whatever is the most popular for the field, you'd probably get more citations. Since academia is rounding error in Matlab's income, you will only be hurting yourself, if you chose not to use Matlab in a problem that it is best suited for. 5) Projects fail for many reasons. But, in your case, could the common denominator be the university rather than Matlab? In universities, it is hard (and I'd say unethical) to keep students for very long, so a research group may end up with a lot of code without owners if they are not careful. Good labs manage their projects, codebase, and hand-offs better.