No guarantee it will be high-paying, and the word "required" implies that at some point in this process you become beholden to your educators. They certainly don't want any applicants taking the paid education and leaving, so I can imagine some print, fine or otherwise, indemnifying a worthy student (one who is offered a job) should they not fulfill this 18-month requirement.

Still sounds better than dumping 4 years and $160K on a normal degree and then finding no jobs afterward.

I've got a friend now who is a cook in a kitchen. I've been trying to convince him to learn Ruby. This is a killer thing for him. He's making like $12/hr now. Even a "bad" paying programming gig will surely beat that.

You're comparing an intensive 5 month apprenticeship to getting a university CS degree. My personal view is that neither will prepare you for a job as well as just building stuff in your free time.

Is the contract published somewhere? What if something unexpected comes up, say their spouse develops cancer and they need to move to another state to get the best treatment possible? Probably a poor example as Living Social would let that person work remotely, but still, it's a contract -- what are the consequences of breaking it? For similar offers, the 'apprentice' simply needs to repay some or all of the cost of the education.

Yep, that's my understanding -- it's basically "we spent $xx,xxx training you, then you left. We think you owe us $yy,yyy."

That being said, it's a company of humans. What good is a developer who's shackled to their desk while a spouse is distressed in another state? None. There will be a way to work it out. We want you to be happy and great at building software, not imprisoned.