I think your numbers are off. One you seem to be speaking only of developers in the San Francisco and valley area. $100K for 2 years of experience is by no mean

I think your numbers are off. One you seem to be speaking only of developers in the San Francisco and valley area. $100K for 2 years of experience is by no means a norm for 99% of the country. Also, you seem to be saying that after some high school courses you're going to be dropped into a job immediately. I don't think so. One, it's a huge hurdle to bypass college. You're going to have to spend a lot of time refining your skills and then more time building some portfolio if you don't go to college. Also, it's not normal to get 60% raises your first and second year in the workforce. You have to be exceptional and changing jobs. More likely the student will be earning $42.5K the third year if they stay at the same job. Even transitioning jobs, it's going to be hard (outside of the valley microcosm) for any hiring manager to give you a 60% pay raise for an entry-level position. I think a better sales pitch and more realistic one is that after your courses and with several hard years of refining your programming skills, you can expect to make the median US household income your first year ($50K). And that with changing jobs, you can expect to be in the top 35% of income in a few years ($70K). (edited: percentiles and clarified I mean household... and doing some pot odds of failures rates of 66% never grasping advanced programming, their expectation is $16K/yr, or, right where they were headed anyway)