That said, half my 4 year software engineering education was hands-on, figure-it-out-yourself stuff; a year of internships and a ton of group projects.
Depending on your university, focused education vs scattershot education, this actually sounds about right.
I think the fee was 300€/year, most of it was headed toward paying mandatory access to the university library. That would be 300x5=1500€ (~2k$) for a complete engineering degree.
Lets not forget that all this is paid with tax money though. You will sort of pay back these studies when paying your taxes once working :)
In Bordeaux it's ~200€ for licence and ~300€ for master, but yeah, lowballed that a little bit.
But ! Note that in France almost 40% of university students get the state grant (https://www.campusmatin.com/vie-campus/experience-etudiante/...) - and thus don't even have to pay the inscription fee.
> Lets not forget that all this is paid with tax money though. You will sort of pay back these studies when paying your taxes once working :)
People in the US pay income tax, too - https://www.companow.com/us-vs-france-where-do-you-pay-the-m...
Also, forget having a campus, classrooms looks like they haven't been renovated in 200 years, you need your own computers because labs are too outdated, professors salaries are a joke, professors keep mixing their personal interests / companies with university - basically getting free work out of students for their businesses, majority of students move out of Italy after graduating because high taxes and bureaucracy make it impossible for profitable business to start up (estimated 250k€ in taxes invested in education lost per student).
I'd rather live in Italy than other countries but I won't uniquely for tax reasons.
Which leads to fun times where English had to pay max UK rate at Scottish universities but EU citizens paid the same as Scots.
Also, Germany is somewhat difficult to navigate if you don't speak German, since you reach many roadblocks where people don't speak English (this is different in Denmark, but Denmark's nationalist party has abolished bachelor studies in English, so much for that).
Back when I was in school, I looked hard at all the options for studying abroad in France and found none with tuition even close to that cheap for even just a semester or summer.
I suspect the prices you're talking about are heavily subsidized and only if you're French (which the OP probably isn't).
Where do you come from ? If it's from the US, sure, it's quite more expensive. If it's from another european country, or a poor country, it should be cheap.
I'm guessing the OP is in the US if they're talking about Lambda School, but even the full foreigner price for your school looks substantially less expensive than Lambda.
That makes question who is more employable: a student with 48 months of University, or someone with 6 months of Lambda and 2.5 years of real world experience? Note, I assumed the Lambda grad had a year unemployed.
Clearly that is an extreme example, but it illustrates the point - getting a paying job quickly does not mean it is the best answer for long-term salary and career growth. Getting any old coding job just to get one is not the same thing as getting the full education that comes from a degree. That doesn't make it the wrong answer... getting a job matters. But if you are comparing long-term outcomes, you need to look at it with more context.
That is, to be able to think in terms of ROI is a privilege.