A CS degree costs something like 124 yrs salary for someone in a low income nation—and it’s a much longer harder road. I’m not AI’s biggest fan, but arguably, this type of tech actually narrows the gap. Even if it’s expensive.
¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence
² Nor do they cost the same everywhere.
³ In the sense that it’s not a subscription. I get that in the US you may be paying for student loans for an unreasonably long time, but that’s not normal for the rest of the world.
Of course, someone from a low income nation is most likely to go to university in their own country which is a whole lot cheaper (and a lot of low and middle income countries have free or subsidised university education - which is why British hospitals were historically had lots of South Asian doctors, and now Africans). If their own country does not offer the right degree or demand for limited places is very high they can study in another low or middle income country (I know Sri Lankans who have studied in India).
You can't compare the cost of a degree in the US with how much that person would pay in their country (even for a top uni there)
And even if you literally compare US costs, that person would probably be eligible to scholarships etc (if they manage to be selected, of course)
The actual cost of a CS degree varies a lot depending on the country, but here in Vietnam I think it's about $1000 per term at public universities. That's not cheap, it's about a year at minimum wage here. But it's a long, long way from your claim of 124 years.
And to forestall the obvious next claim: Vietnamese education is quite good actually. Maybe you won't be going to Harvard but there's plenty of universities in the top 1000 worldwide with a few in the top 200 (no idea for the ranking for CS specifically though).
£9,535/year * 3 year degree / 124 years ~= £231/year ~= 310 USD/year
UN estimates GDP/capita of Yemen and Burundi were less than this, that Tajikistan has lower gross average monthly wages. Those are nominal, not PPP.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_w...
The World Bank numbers here are adjusted for cost of living, say that 1.31% of the world population are living on a dollar a day: https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/poverty-explorer?tab=li...
> Why would someone in Yemen have to go to UK to get a CS degree when they have multiple universities offering the same course.
Same reason they'd be using an American AI company instead of a cheaper one that e.g. runs on their phone.
You are factually wrong, a Yemeni does not need to pay 100+ years of salary to get a CS degree, end of story.
Also, I've been a researcher and have few scientific papers published (you can search for my name on scholar: Enrico Polanski) and I've seen ZERO evidence that a student from Harvard or Imperial to be more knowledgeable than one in unnamed universities from the third world you've never heard about. None.
It's way too personal and student dependent. Plenty of people in ivy league famous colleges study to ace exams and don't remember shit few weeks later. Plenty of people in unnamed universities are genuinely curious.
Your college makes very little difference in how prepared you will be. Single teachers/courses may have an impact, but the location very little.
???
> You are factually wrong, a Yemeni does not need to pay 100+ years of salary to get a CS degree, end of story.
So far as I can tell, the like-for-like comparison is as per the other commenter you responded to: here's a fancy thing rich people in rich countries use, therefore the comparison is to a rich country's degree.
This is because you also don't need to pay 38.6 months of income to get access to an AI. Not even to access OpenAI's best. And even the downgrade after usage limits is not terrible.
Of course, if you don't like this comparison, then sure, I'd accept what you say. I'm disagreeing about the assumptions of what's comparable here.
> I've seen ZERO evidence that a student from Harvard or Imperial to be more knowledgeable than one in unnamed universities from the third world you've never heard about.
Mm. Tempted to agree even without looking you up: I'm British, so my reference point for "fancy university isn't automatically great" is half the British politicians.
OTOH, after I graduated, I did live in Cambridge (UK) for nearly a decade, and I do miss how incredibly densely packed it was with nerds, it's not something I found in other places.
https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college-by-country
Sadly, no, £9k/year is the price for UK students. International students studying in the UK have much higher costs: https://www.uniadmissions.co.uk/international-students/inter...
A lot of people do though. There are lots of international students, many from low and middle income countries. Obviously from high income families.
> It's normal for international student tuition fees to be inflated by many universities, they try to collect some extra revenue based on a perceived extra prestige,
In the UK the government heavily subsidises the fees of British students (basically defined as having lived in the UK for the previous three years, other than on a student visa - there are some other complexities but that is the simple version) whereas overseas fees are the full market rate.
> Similar to charging different prices for tourists than for locals.
Not a thing in the UK.