Do you have an example of another industry that was high paying, well respected, and cheap to learn, that DIDN'T decline in pay and opportunities?

It's cheap to learn if you are intelligent and are already good at abstract thinking.

A lot of Indian programmers get payed quite poorly because they don't have the hacker mindset. Teaching the hacker mindset is not straightforward because there often a lot of culture in the way.

There are Indians who manage to learn to become good programmers but most people who learn programming at an Indian university don't.