[pnathan]

In Idaho, the 4 year universities are about 3K per semester. Assuming a 4-year degree, that's 24K in tuition. If it's 5 years, that's 30K.

You can live on about 1K per month. So loosely, that's about 20K per year to get a degree here.

[trefn]

it's correct to think about the bigger picture, but you'd be paying rent anyway. I think the right number to look at is tuition + opportunity cost, e.g. 6K + 18K salary or whatever.

[pnathan]

Opportunity cost was very little for me and all the other CS people I knew in undergraduate. The alternative for most people was doing tech support and making 24K/year with no growth potential (using local rates). Since the local rate for a BSCS is about 50K, there's no meaningful reason for the bulk of students to drop out. You'd have to have 20% year over year growth in income (not counting the bennies coming in with a salary job) to equal it.

In other words, for a computer science student - if you have a business raking in cash and you need to drop out to keep the money stream, you're losing out. Otherwise, stay in college.