[lgsilver]

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.

[latexr]

That’s a false equivalence¹. You don’t need a CS degree² to become a good programmer, you can do it with time, perseverance, and access to an old machine. Additionally, even if you needed a CS degree, you don’t keep paying for that indefinitely³ and get skills which last for life. An LLM subscription is something you have to keep paying for, and are screwed if you can no longer afford it, it goes down, or you’re in a place without internet connectivity.

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.

[graemep]

It sounds like you are talking about the cost of doing a CS degree in a developed country. The $736 (number used in article, source World bank) number multiplied by 124 gives you $93k. That is enough to manage a degree at one of the cheaper (but perfectly OK - regulated to ensure minimum standards) universities in the UK such as Chester. It cover one year of fees at Oxford but not leave you much to live on. I am pretty sure there are cheaper options in Europe.

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).

[raverbashing]

It doesn't

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)

[esperent]

This is utter bullshit. An American CS degree might cost that much, but why would someone from a developing country (who isn't rich or getting a scholarship) want one of those?

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).

[epolanski]

Do you have a source for this claim?

[ben_w]

UK tuition fees £9,535/year - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tuition-fees-and-...

£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...

[nosianu]

Why is the basis a high-tuition fee high-cost country? Many countries have much lower fees and costs, including Western ones.

https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college-by-country

[ben_w]

And many AI are cheaper than OpenAI Pro. For example, OpenAI free.

[alightsoul]

which has stricter usage limits.

[District5524]

That's for international students going to the UK to study CS. There is not much point for anyone to go to the UK to study CS for that amount of money (unless they already live there, but they get their degree for a third or even less of that money). 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, especially the US and UK. Similar to charging different prices for tourists than for locals.

[graemep]

> There is not much point for anyone to go to the UK to study CS for that amount of money (unless they already live there, but they get their degree for a third or even less of that money)

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.

[ben_w]

> That's for international students going to the UK to study CS

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...

[epolanski]

For Yemen, you should look at the cost of a CS degree in Yemen, which is $ 700/year, not in a foreign country.

[ben_w]

To the earlier version of your comment:

> 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.

[epolanski]

That's not an answer.

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.

[ben_w]

> That's not an answer.

???

> 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.

[graemep]

The difference in quality is not the same. I have worked with graduates of universities from a middle income country (Sri Lanka) and they are pretty good. Plenty of them get jobs in western countries as developers. What they miss out on is not technical skills so much as international exposure to a more developed economy and culture.

[throwawayffffas]

In Greece university education is free. You just have to finish highschool and take an exam.