Is a PhD from a developing country worth paying for? In my country, Egypt, some well-known institutes offer PhD degrees. I want to apply for a PhD program in biostatistics for which I will certainly pay a lot of money.

How much would such a program increase my chances of joining academia in the USA or Europe?



EDIT: The OP didn't specify, and possibly doesn't know, whether the university in question is a diploma mill. To keep the question open, please assume that it is not; i.e., assume that the university is legit. If anyone is interested in whether it's worth obtaining a non-legit degree I recommend starting a new question. If the OP wishes to clarify later on he should simply remove this note.
I don't think it's possible to give an answer in the abstract.  In general I wouldn't recommend paying a lot for a Ph.D. program anywhere, but it depends on how much they charge and how much money you have.  Ph.D. programs in developing countries vary enormously in quality and reputation, and how useful they would be for getting an academic job in the U.S. or Europe varies accordingly.

However, you can try to estimate this for the programs you care about.  The key question is how many Ph.D. recipients from these programs get jobs you would like.  Typically you can find lists of former students on a potential advisor's website, and some web searches will reveal what became of them.  (If you can't find any information on someone online, then they probably didn't get an academic job.)  If very few former students have jobs you would like, then that's a bad sign, while it's a good sign if many of them do.  Of course there are no guarantees either way, but this will give some context for how plausible different outcomes are.