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Comment by iancmceachern | Hacker News Reader

Yeah but this is less than 1/10 of 1% of the number of people that graduate every year. By the same logic you could say that everyone has trust funds, because most of the people in this small slice have them. Just because something applies to the top 0.1% of the US doesn't mean it applies to the rest of the 99.9%. This is the problem with wealth and opportunity disparity in this country. The haves think that the have nots are in that position due to choice. It's not a choice to be born into poverty.

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Georgia Tech is consistently ranked a Top 10 CS program (worldwide) and their OMSCS program now accounts for 10% of all MSCS degrees issued. It costs about 6,000 to 7,000 USD total:

"OMSCS started in January 2014 with 380 students. Enrollment increased each semester (excluding summer terms). In 2019 I believed that we were very close to the peak, since we are graduating more and more students. But then, the pandemic hit and we have kept growing every semester. This spring term we just passed a new mile stone – we have over 12,000 students, 12,016 to be precise. We might be at the peak or very close to it. Apparently, OMSCS is the biggest degree program, online or not in any subject in the US and probably the world. More importantly, the degree is of the same quality of the on campus program. We have 56 courses (we started with 5); several courses now have over 1,000 students. We graduated 1,970 in 2021 for a total of 6,470 so far. We are graduating in a year well over 10% of the number of those that graduate with MS in CS in the US." - Zvi Galil

Online, Cheap and Elite: https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2018...

Looks great on paper but the people you really need to reach don't have undergrad done. Is this one of those rare masters one can complete with no undergrad done?

> Is this one of those rare masters one can complete with no undergrad done?

No. OMSCS is practically open door compared to other elite CS programs, but an undergrad degree is a strict requirement. It's graduate school.

In fact I don't believe there are any such Master's programs, or at least not accredited ones in the US.

The only example I was aware of was (a now defunct?) masters program by I want to say Oxford, but I haven't been able to turn it up recently.

In any case -- until you have complete undergrad for $5-7k and doable part time, no, these jobs aren't accessible.

Paging George P. Burdell…

George was the first graduate of the program.

It’s not a choice to apply yourself and get into a good school? I mean seriously, given how hot the US software market is, there’s no excuse.

And FWIW, I come from a poor immigrant background. My family was on welfare. I got free lunch at school. The American dream come true. Sorry that not everyone can hack it in life.

Ah yes, after all a lottery winner will advise everyone around them to play lottery - clearly it works, they are the best example.

Once again, you are refusing to acknowledge that the word "typical" is not appropriate here. Even in your example it's not typical for American people to achieve that American dream, as America is absolutely awful on the social mobility scale.

Edit: also it's really classy you are just deleting your replies to my comments instead of actually engaging in a discussion. Your choice I suppose.

Exactly my point, folks with privilege like yourself don't even understand what privilege they have and have taken advantage of their whole life.

I did (apply myself). I did work my ass off to get into, and out of, (good) engineering school and pay for it also.

It simply wasn't an option for me to go to an expensive private or out of state school with a price tag of a couple hundred thousand dollars. So I went to the best school I could afford. Many folks are in this boat. It's not for a lack of trying or intelligence - it's for a lack of privilege.

Edit - I also want to acknowledge that compared to many folks in the world I am very privileged. It only serves to highlight my point even further. These statements are less about me personally and more about me recognizing that I, and many others in our HN world are very privileged in one way or another as compared to he average American, or Human.

My family was so poor, I got into college for free. Talk about unprivileged.

But you had the privilege if uncommon intelligence and test taking ability. Not all privilege is money.

Too bad. Life isn’t fair. Evolution got us to where we were, and I’m glad that we have consciousness due to relentless natural selection.

I'm not complaining about it. Just recognizing it.

You're going to have to pick one between

>>> So I went to the best school I could afford. Many folks are in this boat. It's not for a lack of trying or intelligence - it's for a lack of privilege.

and

> But you had the privilege [o]f uncommon intelligence and test taking ability. Not all privilege is money.

Not really. It's not so black and white. My point is that above a certain threshold of GPA/test scores/"intelligence" college is free. If you are below that threshold college is not. For those of us that were below that threshold, for whatever reason, we had to figure out how to pay for it. Within that bucket there are people who's family can just pay for it, no matter how expensive (these are the people going to Harvard and Wharton out of pocket), and there are those who simply can't afford to pay 200k for an education because they don't have it. Those folks then choose state Schools (which I went to and are wonderful). My point is that the average graduate of Wharton has a much higher average starting salary than the average state school. Therefore tying a family's ability to pay more tuition with a graduates average salary being higher.

It's simply the way the world works. The rich get richer.

So just to be clear, you're repudiating your statement that when people can't afford to attend college, that's not for lack of intelligence on their part?

I never made such a statement. This is reductio ad absurdum. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

Sorry, where did the "reduction" occur in rephrasing "above a certain intelligence, college is free" to "if you can't afford college, you're missing some intelligence"?

The one is just the logical contrapositive of the other.

Those aren't the same thing, that's where the reduction occurred.

My statement, which is the simple reality of the world, was that top performing students who are able to prove so via grades, test scores and other admissions requirements and scholarship requirements, are able to have top tier educations paid for via scholarships and similar aid. For folks, like me, who weren't in that bucket, have a different set of opportunities and tradeoffs. Those include paying for a 200k "top tier" education if our situation affords it, or the choice I and many others make which is to go to the best state school (or other "affordable") option.

I'm not complaining, it's just how the world works. If you were to create a flow chart for college that covers any input (student), this is what it would look like.

Reducing the above to "college is free above a certain intelligence" is missing the point and focusing on a needless obsurd detail.

Nonsense, you were privileged to be the right kind of "poor", the kind of poor that the system caters to. Just because the system gave you a big hand up does not imply that it does for everyone in equal conditions. You were privileged and you don't even realize it.

There are many poor people that are never given that opportunity regardless of ability. To those people, you had an easy path.

Please stop using that word. It sucks the life from you because you think it excuses you from self analyzing why you aren't happy where you are. Life is not fair if you are a human, cat, squirrel or mouse. We are born into a specific set of conditions...look around and move but please stop using the word privilege. Everyone and everything is different.

I am very happy where I am. Within myself, I am not blaming anything for lack of anything but rather celebrate my successes and what has come from my hard work.

That doesn't mean I can't recognize that folks are different, and that where we start out most definitely has an impact on how far we go.

Just what is it with extra privileged people and being allergic to admitting it.

You seriously, honestly, from the bottom of your heart, think that 90% of the 70k people living in the Complexo do Alemão are just lazy and don't fix their lives due to sloth?

Before you start, I'm happy with my life and my circumstances.

As I have gotten older I regret the opportunities I didn't take or passed up because I was focused on others. Don't let my regrets be yours.

What does that have to do with the discussion?

I actually agree with this, if only because of the political connotations the term “privilege” has acquired.

I think a better term would be “advantages”. It adequately describes the meaning that’s being conveyed without carrying the implication that it’s necessarily completely outside of the individual’s control.

Yeah, I agree.

I went to a public in-state school with poor parents. Full need-based financial aid in school. I made 6 figures out of school and currently make the big numbers you claim are impossibly rare.

You claim that not everyone is intelligent enough to make it into these schools in another post but we know from science that even just changing the way you study can improve performance by half a standard deviation [1]. So maybe you just didn't work as hard as the competition? Maybe you didn't look at all the aspects of _how_ you work and do some self-reflection about working more efficiently?

Don't blame intelligence when your own decisions have much more impact on overall performance than 10-20 points of IQ do. Why do you think Asians comprise 50% of school populations where affirmative action is banned? Hint: it's not because of superior intelligence, but work ethic.

[1]: https://www.gwern.net/Spaced-repetition

I like how the person above can also say the following.

> Why is it nonsense? The wealthy and connected can already give their progeny undue access to opportunities via their social networks, and can afford the best education that money can buy. That's already way more of an advantage than the average citizen gets. Besides, the whole point is to maximize equality of opportunity.

For computers, not everyone can afford computers in America. I was lucky to find a job walking fields as a child to afford one but that opportunity doesn't exist for everyone.

Exactly, and not everyone knows to go do this stuff. It's like this NPR piece on why there are so many sprinters in Jamaica.

https://www.npr.org/2012/05/04/151956595/a-need-for-speed-in...

Spoiler - it's because it's seen by kids. If a kid in Jamaica wants to be a runner it's obvious to them what to do. Its being told to them every day in their sports entertainment, local events, advertising, etc. It a kid in Jamaica wants to be a CS person, they have no clue what to do. No TV ads, local clubs, events, races, all grooming them day by day to he a better programmer. We have that in the US, in the Bay area, etc. We are grooming young STEM folks from the beginning.

That’s not the full story.

The book « The Sports Gene » discusses that the West African heritage of Jamacians actually gives them a genetic advantage. I forget the details but basically, to resist malaria they have sickle cell anemia which leads to powerful anaerobic systems ideal for sprinting.

You could put someone of different genetic stock in the same culture bit they wouldn’t be as successful at sprinting.

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