I like starting a school-related project as a private Github repo, then as time or permission allows for to open it up as a public repo. I've open-sourced a few things this way, whereas the couple Bitbucket repos have been left to languish since I don't have a limit on private repos or the ecosystem to share it with.

You can always push your private BitBucket repos to public Github ones -- just add another remote and push there.

Though you will have to leave your issues/wiki at BitBucket. Usually not a problem as you don't have one but still annoying.

I'm sure you know, but you can just clone from bitbucket, then push it to github. You keep all your history and everything. I can dig that there's friction, though.

Since I've had 3 replies I'd like to clarify a bit.

- Github has a large enough network effect that I can ask for another student's Github account and expect that they will have one. That lowers the friction to getting a new project started.

- I have moved a repo from BitBucket to Github, it is about as easy as the comments state.

- That said, I haven't needed more than 5 private repos at once, and the ability to visit one site (and one interface) to view all my work is easier than visiting two sites.

It is very easy to import a private BitBucket repo and make it public on GitHub.