<p>Okay, so I've been hearing a lot about the dismal salaries of architects. However, is there any difference if you graduate from an (undergraduate) architecture school like Cooper Union, or Cornell? How much would the starting salaries of students who graduate from top ranked schools earn compared with others? (Cooper, Cornell, MIT, Yale, etc)</p>
<p>Once you get a job, your boss will probably forget where the heck you graduated from in a week. Salaries should be almost the same.</p>
<p>PolyArch is pretty much correct. As someone who’s been working quite a while, I can attest to the fact that all “interns” start out at generally the same salary, no matter what school you went to.</p>
<p>I work in city government, and as long as you have an accredited B.Arch degree, everyone starts out with the same pay grade, no matter what school you went to. </p>
<p>Many firms today don’t give you an increase even if you obtain your license.</p>
<p>So…I guess it’s education for education’s sake then?</p>
<p>My experience as an architect with many years of private and public experience, both as employee and employer… Where you go to school may not make a difference in salary, but it certainly makes a difference in whether you are hired in the first place…or even get an interview…at least in your early work career. Except for government positions, it’s just natural for employers to gravitate to people from their alma mater, or from schools they have heard of or have had experience with. My first three jobs out of architecture school were with employers from my alma mater. </p>
<p>And this is regional, as well. Eastern employers are more familiar with Eastern schools, less so with those from the Midwest and West, except for the most nationally prominent schools.</p>
<p>Once you have some experience and have some good references…say after about 5 years of work…where you went to school makes very little difference.</p>
<p>However…good education does matter, and not just for its own sake. Some architecture programs prepare their graduates better than others. And some prepare better designers, some prepare better technicians, some prepare better business people.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, there’s so few architecture jobs out there right now, and so much competition for them, that architecture really isn’t a viable profession right now.</p>
<p>‘architecture really isn’t a viable profession right now’</p>
<p>I won’t deny how difficult things are right now in the profession, but it is still a viable profession and quite a few of us are still making a living at it. The competition for jobs is very tough, but real talent is still hard to find. We have hired about five or six people in the last three months with national ads and we are getting good solid architects, but the outstanding people still have jobs.</p>
<p>rick</p>
<p>I agree with rick12, and would add (cautiously and with my fingers crossed) that I’m beginning to see some turnaround. We have received five or six requests for proposals for substantial new projects in the last few weeks. And we have four or five interviews in the next few weeks.</p>