The program is free to attend. If you do it in person though you ofc have to pay NYC rent for a few months.

It's also a full time job that doesn't pay anything

Yeah, but even if you go remote you still need to be able to have your income interrupted during your time in Recurse - which isn't viable for me.

This is very true. Not much they can do about that unfortunately. Some people work a job in the meanwhile and they work with those people. But it definitely detracts from the program and they warn against it if avoidable