I'm at this training with a developer from South America who just moved to the US, and holy moly he got screwed over. He is earning $15/hr writing PHP for this

I'm at this training with a developer from South America who just moved to the US, and holy moly he got screwed over. He is earning $15/hr writing PHP for this small company in an expensive area ($1350/month for 1 bed & 1 bath) with a broad non-compete and $4k that he will have to pay back if he leaves within the next 12 months for this training. I know the training itself is free (they actually are giving us a few grand in credit for going), and hotels, flights, etc are under $1k, so this is a super sweet deal for his company.