Generally speaking, yes, it would. Micropython runs on both esp8266 (a couple of dollars for a board) and micro:bit (designed for education); so cost isn't a factor. Uploading/flashing code is annoying on the esp8266 (though decent tooling would assist with that). I think for students real hardware is much more useful - this is probably going to be more useful for people actually trying to build something (not that students should be excluded from that, but the target is different)