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<p>But prestige is not completely subjective. For example, in a listing of engineering school prestige, nobody is going to rank MIT last. You might argue about where exactly MIT would be slotted within the prestige hierarchy, but it’s clearly not going to be in last place. </p>
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<p>In this case, I would simply point to the differentials in pay: the Goldman guy is clearly being paid more. </p>
<p>But the question then is - why? In particular, that raises the question of just how important certain tasks are within society. After all, as other posters have said before, engineering products have to work, or people will die. Planes have to stay in the air, bridges can’t collapse. So wouldn’t it then be logical for the engineers who design safe planes and bridges that prevent deaths to be paid exceedingly well in return? But as we all know, that doesn’t happen: those engineers do not really get paid that well, certainly not the level of consultants and bankers. That’s a stark example of engineers providing tremendous value to society, but capturing little of that value for themselves.</p>