Your logic is a bit backwards, the schools teach and Maya because want to hire people that use and Maya, because they use and Maya.
Personally I use Softimage because out of the first 3 applications I learned, , Maya, and XSI, it was the most artist firendly, quickest, and had all the features I needed. Maya was too menu heavy, had a lot of hidden options, and generally felt bloated. The biggest con of Softimage was that it’s not widely used, and there’s less community made plug-ins and content. Now that Softimage is dead I plan on learning Modo, which has increasing popularity by professional artists in the indusrty, lots of artist friendly tools, fast for modeling, big updates, etc. I really should give Blender a go, but it’s really less commonly used by professional artist than even Modo, and it doesn’t seem to be designed with artist in mind.
Blender is definitely good enough for dev, a tool is just a tool, as long as it’s not slowing you down and does everything you need, it’s a perfectly valid option.