It’s my choice but Arch and its derivatives look like the trend like CachyOS which is #1 right now on visits on distrowatch. Also I’ve heard Google use Debian as gLinux and I feel many other giants also use it and sponsor it and I’m not comfortable choosing it as my distro. Can the sponsors togethwr with students or any other interested use it for their PCs, either coding or ordinary use? It strictly promotes free but worried about giants and sponsors.
Arch people tend to want people to know they use Arch (btw). You’ll also find a lot of posts about getting Arch working.
Debian people tend to be too busy doing other things on their computers besides getting them working, so you’ll hear about it less.
(Important: I’m not dumping on either distro here. Some people, myself included, like Arch exactly because it’s fun to play with and set up. Debian’s older packages tend to mean a more stable system. Use what you like.)