Pay attention to the $15K salary he wants- that's about $75K in today's money. Not much has changed,even though companies nowadays make many tons more money from the dev work...
I know internships can easily earn that but my understanding is they go to 4th year students.
According to the data for students doing internships in the United States, the average first year Computer Science (or more accurate, first year Faculty of Mathematics) student is making $30.57 USD an hour [0]. However, going to the States is typically a function of one's experience, and so this is more common in upper years.
If you take the average for work terms in Canada, the average first year (or more accurately, first year Faculty of Mathematics student) makes $18.84 CAD [1].
[0] https://uwaterloo.ca/co-operative-education/about-co-op/co-o...
[1] https://uwaterloo.ca/co-operative-education/about-co-op/co-o...
(This doesn't disqualify any of what you said; it's just worth pointing out for those who are unfamiliar with the program.)
The skills came from learning to program starting in the 5th grade.
So first year students don't make that kind of money but as a first year student you might have skills that were honed earlier which allows for that type of job.
In fact, many professors were adamant they didn't care about languages at all other than someone grading it can read it. Some classes never wanted to see your source code. Most classes didn't have code at all!
Those in good programs had classes that were focused on the actual subject matter (algorithms, OS, compilers, ML, etc.) with the language just being a tool, and in upper level classes, professors absolutely didn’t even care what language you used, as long as it got the job done (within reasonable limits, of course; no one likes grading BrainFuck code, even though some people attempted writing assignments in those as a joke).
Those in weaker programs, instead, had a “Java class”, “C class”, “javascript class”, etc.
CS isn't a vocational course.
I don't understand this nuance. Is it standard to be paid $75k? Sounds like a lot to me.
Someone in his ability range today will earn twice that (Gates was clearly at least a top 25% programmer in his day, more likely solidly top 10%), or more depending on location. That's before factoring in the age & experience issues, which can throw that all over the place and would be hard to adjust for today vs 45 years ago.