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Comment by crpatino | Hacker News Reader

>“Why would you spend a quarter of a million dollars and four years to learn to code in Python?”

The "learning to code in Python" part qualifies you to earn in the ballpark of $125K USD per year, on average, over a career that will last ~42 years. ROI is 2 years (after graduation), capital will last literally for a lifetime. What's not to like?

The "quarter of a million dollars" part will give you the opportunity to know and make friends with people that can pay that kind of money out of pocket (not like you, middle class boy, who had to take a lot of debt for the privilege). Those friends will open doors to you and apply a multiplier factor to the baseline scenario ($125K per year). Best case, they will be your co-founders in a multi-million acquisition event. Worst case, you do not do any friends and coat-tail in the fame of your institution (with multiplier factor between 0.9 and 1.5)

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That's a very optimistic view on the situation considering that average pay of a "Computer Programmer" is just under 80,000 [0]. IT Managers are closer towards your ballpark at just under 130,000 according to the same source.

Also your ROI assumes you have no expenses at all for those two years?

There is a lot not to like about being a quarter million dollars in debt at the age of 22. Especially since the majority of programmers who graduate from these colleges come out and make between 60-80 for years and many never reach 125,000. Especially when you consider trying to pay for rent, food, bills, loans, and living all at once.

And while the number of graduates who go on to have a multi-million dollar acquisition event is undoubtably higher than most professions, it is still a statistically insignificant percentage much like kids in college hoping to play football for the rest of their days.

Personally I'd take critical thinking skills over any specialized set of skills any day. Because those are the kind of skills that can improve all areas of my life, not just the financial aspect.

The fact that, as a society, we can routinely saddle 22 year olds with tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt for the chance to get a higher education is deeply troubling to me.

[0] - http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/computer-programme...

All your points are worthy, and up to a point I agree.

You are also right about my model, my ROI is probably flawed. I think the main flaw, though, is not lack of "expenses" but lack of a cost of opportunity analysis which explores what happens if you go find yourself any job available after completing high school.

Still, I'd challenge the idea that $80K is the average salary we should care about. First, I am talking about lifelong average, not starting salary.

Second, since we are talking about a "quarter of million dollar education", I assumed it is an elite program we are talking about. This means their alumni will tend to get better results, in part because of the quality of the program itself... but also in (a big) part because of the enhanced opportunities available to their graduates.

Or maybe I am out of touch with the cost of a university degree in the US. If this is the cost for a typical program, then my point was indeed optimistic.

According to the U.S. government the average cost for all private universities in the United states is around 33,000. Up from an average of 18,000 dollars in 1981. Luckily, while public universities have also doubled their tuition averages, they're a meager (in comparison) average of around 18,000 dollars [0]. So on average, if you're paying on your own futures dime you're looking at 64,000 - 132,000 dollars you have to pay, plus accrued interest, after taxes come from your wages, before you can do anything like consider buying a home to live in.

It's not a quarter of a million dollars, but it's still a house in many areas of the country, and a ton of money to pay off. And lets not forget the vast majority of majors do not have anywhere near the demand Computer Scientists enjoy.

It is an extremely short sighted course of action for our nation to not curb ever increasing tuition costs. The future is going to consist of a huge portion of our population either without a higher education due to the preventative and egregious costs of obtaining one; or struggling under a mountain load of debt which continually accrues interest, doesn't disappear with bankruptcy, and prevents those burdened as such from achieving stability through real estate purchases and retirement saving accruement. In my eyes, this will only result in losses on the world stage as our debt ridden and undereducated populace stops producing the types of environments which engender creativity and spur creation.

[0] - http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=76

I'm not suggesting that learning to code isn't "worth" 4 years and 250k, given no other option. I would say that there are far more efficient ways to learn to code and win that kind of job or salary.

Agreed with the learning how to code part. You still have not addressed the question on how to land connections with wealthy individuals. Otherwise, you are going to end up making lots of money... for somebody else.

You're missing the point. Learning to to code in Python is fairly easy, you could teach yourself. Can you teach yourself to think critically or be a better communicator? Unlikely.

On the contrary, my personal experience is that Universities are very good to transmit specific knowledge (i.e. Python), but fail miserably to develop introspective and critical thinking in their pupils.

By necessity, you gain the later by long years of self study (and probably lots and lots of of detours and false starts).

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