Does the 'Average Starting Salary' Mean Anything?---Engineering

Paying for College
1

Does that impact the decision of going to a certain university?

I personally am going into mechanical engineering and I am skeptical about the ‘average starting salary’ colleges brag about. These are the only reasons I can think of for why one would be higher than another:

  1. The school is recruited by employers who have higher starting salaries.
  2. School A actually gives a better education than school B, so school A students are more qualified for certain jobs.
  3. Generally smarter students end up being accepted to the more prestigious schools so the students there would be paid more no matter what school they went to.

Number 1 and 3 are what strike me to have the greatest impact with number 3 outweighing number 1. Lets say I could get into MIT (hypothetically), but instead pick a school that will be more economical.

Does the name of the school have that great of an impact of my success in the future? I am somewhat on par with other MIT incoming students but choose say Alabama. There is a fairly large difference in the starting salaries between the two schools.

My question is… why???

2

In general, the biggest lever on salary differentials is geography. A job in Silicon Valley pays more than a comparable job in Dayton Ohio because it costs more to live there.

3

@blossom Ahhh… That makes sense. So you think there is no substantial difference between schools? Should you go to a college in an area you would like to live and have your first job then?

Also, what about research vs non research? Like Cal Poly vs UT Austin? How do those compare?

4

Are you comparing starting salaries for all students? Or just those in engineering? If you are comparing just engineering, then okay. But if it’s the entire school and one school is MIT, Cal Tech or Mudd where everyone is a STEM major and the other has all sorts of majors (that don’t pay nearly as well) then it won’t be a fair comparison.

5

@ClaremontMom Specifically mechanical engineering.

6

I don’t know if I understand your question.

First of all- the data is muddy. Not everyone who majors in mechanical engineering gets a job in mechanical engineering. A kid at Princeton could get a job at Bridgewater or DE Shaw developing complex financial instruments which pays significantly more than Boeing or GM doing mechanical engineering job. So that muddies the water.

Second- some colleges attract employers from all over the country and it doesn’t matter where you currently live- they will move you. Other colleges attract a primarily regional employer base. You can’t compare the two.

Third- I never said there is no substantial difference between schools. There are lots of differences between schools- the question is, are those differences meaningful to you, AND can you afford to pay for the increment of the more expensive option?

Is MIT “worth” the extra tuition vs. your instate option? That depends. For my kid (who did not end up in engineering, btw) the price difference for MIT was worth it. To him and to us. But it’s easy for me to say that- since we had saved for his college education since he was born. There were many private U’s with engineering schools which we would not have been willing to pay for, since the differences (to us) weren’t meaningfully better than the public U option.

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@blossom my parents can ‘afford’ to send me wherever, but they have saved for 4 years of instate because they didn’t want to be penalized for withdrawing from their 529.

My potential schools are UT Austin, Texas A&M (both in-state), Alabama (Tuition free plus 2500$ per year), rice, WashU, Cal Poly, Georgia Tech, and SMU.

UT Austin is my top state school and I think I have a fairly good chance. Would you say any of these schools are worth the difference in tuition? My dad is more than capable financially (talked recently), but the cost would have to be justified.

My parents justification for spending more on a school is pretty much prestige and ROI. My dad’s favorites on the list go in this order:

  1. Rice (if I could get like 10-15k/yr merit, he'd pay in a heart beat)
  2. Georgia Tech
  3. UT
  4. A&M
  5. WashU
  6. SMU
  7. Cal Poly SLO
  8. Alabama

I personally would be ecstatic to go to any except Alabama. Wouldn’t be too bad, but just the least favorite.

Congrats on your kid getting into MIT!

8

@Jpgranier …have you visited UA?

To say we were very surprised is an understatement.

The Texas engineering admissions game has changed a LOT in the past few years.

A&M engineering admissions is by holistic review. Even if you get in, you still have to apply again in the next year. They make it clear you are competing with all the other crowd (Blinn bridge team, etc.) for the spots.

UT-looking at the stats from last years admissions cycle makes me very leery. We’ve been in touch with a kid who was valedictorian and almost a perfect SAT and she did not get in. She was accepted to the school itself of course, but not to engineering. And even if you are accepted directly to your major–what happens if you get in and realize you want to do Civil E instead of MechE? They make it clear that switching to another major is almost impossible.

You really really should visit Alabama before you swipe it to the bottom of your list.

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@Jpgranier

My husband hires engineers for his large firm. Graduates from MIT do NOT get paid more than graduates of University of Hartford. Graduates from the Ivies do not get paid more either.

It’s all about experience. At my husband’s firm, they do a LOT of on the job training, and frankly, the MIT grad would get the same on the job training as the University of Hartford grad…and the same salary.

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@carachel2 thank you for the insight! I didn’t realize that you’d be competing with Blinn as well, but I’d think people at A&M the first year would usually have a first pick. I’m hoping for UT acceptance, well I’m hoping for acceptance to all the schools I apply for:p

I’ll be honest, there’s defenitely a negative connotation when you say Alabama where I live. A lot feel like it’s just a lower tier school when we have both A&M and UT. That has definitely rubbed off on me. Everyone I know has an image of trailer homes and hill Billies when it comes to Alabama. I know that’s not true at all! Haha. I really do need to visit the school. I’ll be taking a trip through Alabama and Georgia Tech pretty soon.

11

The University of Alabama has state of the art engineering facilities, and many internship opportunities.

Your gross generalization of the state of Alabama is just that…a gross generalization. Please do not let the biases of others influence your decision. Go visit the Alabama and make your own decision.

As a point of reference, I love in the northeast…and there are MANY students from here applying to Alabama because the value can’t be beat for high stats kids who,are eligible for scholarships.

12

Where you go to school will not make any difference in engineering starting salaries unless you end up doing engineering in the financial trading sector (and even then, preferential starting packages are starting to die).

Source: Friend made X amount as an intern at a big tech company. She is from MIT. I also make X from the same big tech company. My school is unranked.

13

@Jpgranier …this is the start of you being a grown up. Where you make your own decision based not on what your friends say or think, but on what you have gathered from your own research and from what you feel is right for you and your family.

Your peers are judging UA on a sweeping generalization—something they would probably say they pride themselves on NOT doing.

14

The Texas A&M engineering major admission procedure is described at:

https://engineering.tamu.edu/academics/advisors-procedures/entry-to-a-major
https://engineering.tamu.edu/academics/advisors-procedures/entry-to-a-major/application-recommendations

It does look like a 3.5 college GPA automatically admits to the first choice major, bypassing the uncertainty of evaluation of essays or being placed in a second or third choice major (students are required to apply to at least three majors):

https://engineering.tamu.edu/academics/advisors-procedures/entry-to-a-major/general-engineering-program/class-of-2020

15

And yet I know several MIT, CMU and Ivy grads making $100k+ plus bonus at age 22. The salary in any one company may well be the same, but clearly lots of those MIT grads are ending up in other companies.

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Yes…but @hebegebe any engineer hire by those companies would be paid the same salary.

And there are plenty of engineers working at those companies who graduate from any variety of colleges. Not all are from MIT or Cal tech…or the like.

17

Career surveys:

CMU: http://www.cmu.edu/career/salaries_and_destinations/index.html
MIT: https://gecd.mit.edu/resources/survey-data

MIT does have a significant percentage of bachelor’s graduates going into consulting (15.8%) and finance (5.9%).

18

“And there are plenty of engineers working at those companies who graduate from any variety of colleges. Not all are from MIT or Cal tech…or the like.”

This. A friend from MIT got X salary at Microsoft, B housing stipend, C transportation stipend, D airport stipend, and Y signing bonus. Guess what I got, from an unranked school? Exact same thing.

We were both good enough to be hired, so we both get the same thing. That’s how it works at the top cs companies.

19

Oh. So OP is going into mechanical engineering. Before doing software, I did mech e. I’d say it’s definitely more subjective, but still definitely not based on school. It’s based on experience. If you did a ton of internships, your starting salary will probably be higher than someone who didn’t (whereas in software it’s generally more of a base – albeit insanely high – starting salary that anyone good enough to get hired gets. Usually non-negotiable at the big companies; you have to negotiate bonuses/stock instead).

20

If you look at the lists of schools with highest starting salaries, many are in NYC, Boston and Silicon Valley areas, where there is a high cost of living. Note that in NYC, we recruit from Columbia, NYU, Cornell, Rensselaer, Stevens, Stony Brook and many other fine schools here in-state, and nearby states such as Penn. We welcome kids from further but more difficult for them to attend recruiting events. Boston firms can recruit from MIT, WPI, Olin … So while RHIT may have a great education, very few of those kids end up on NYC, Boston or Silicon Valley for logistical (and personal ) reasons, so they may well have lower starting salaries as a result (but maybe better standard of living).

So as a kid even in a Boston, NYC college, you are competing for those highest paid jobs with MIT, Columbia etc grads. Sorry but yes the higher paying jobs will get first crack at those kids, and lower paying jobs may hire from other local schools, dragging down their avg starting salaries.

I think your school matters alot, along with geography. If you go to a top college and/or get As at another college, and are willing to travel for interviews/recruiting events to NYC, Boston or Silicon Valley, you too can get those high paying jobs, but your college’s averages will not be so high. Who cares, you should care about YOUR salary, not that of your school avg. I made well above my school avg salary years ago, because of my field chosen and my skills.

So I agree MIT does not mean higher pay for the same job at the same company, but it may mean
you have that job at that company, and someone else does not !

Quote from a major tech regional sales office manager in Boston area many years ago.
He asked me if I wanted to do pre-sales engineering or sales. I said engineering, and he said
“we go to MIT for engineers and Boston U for salesmen with personalities”. Stereotypes do persist.