@HootieA I’ve been a city kid, a suburb kid, and have lived in rural areas. I like the city. I like Hoboken. I like the bustle. My oldest kid didn’t and, as a grown-up, has grown to like the quiet country. To each his own.
As far as salaries, you’re in my bailiwick now as a 30-year recruiter. I’ve told people for years that starting salaries are all the same but the numbers on the checks are different. Why? Median housing costs. I track this stuff. Salary lines and housing cost lines run parallel (although there are, at any one time, a handful of short-term variations - such as during the fracking boom). For an entry-level job, a Stevens or Lehigh grad cannot expect a premium. Whether a company chose a Rowan or Stevens or Lehigh or Stony Brook grad, they can expect to be paid the same. Where the job is determines starting salaries, not necessarily where the diploma is from.
Of course, later on, salaries and opportunities vary greatly - determined by what one has done and learned, more than anything else. And that is often affected by the candidate’s background more than anything else. A candidate going to a Lehigh or Stevens and paying the freight might have come from a wealthier background than other schools, have better access to capital, a parent with “ins”, or simply higher expectations/self-demands than someone who attended a state school.
No question, Stevens and Lehigh have earned their great reputations, and resumes from them might carry a Good Housekeeping seal that others haven’t earned yet. The guy who Rowan is named after was an MIT grad. If that means nothing to you, you’ve proved my point.
Please share with me the names of the publicly-traded companies that will refuse to interview from a place like Rowan and exclusively only hire from the “Tier 1s” such as Lehigh or Stevens. If I were still playing the market, I’d bet against those companies and surely win long term (see Enron, et multis allis).
@Spaceman - Stevens graduates come in at the fifth highest paid of all engineering schools in the United States according to Payscale’s survey:
https://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report/best-schools-by-type/bachelors/engineering-schools
While Stevens outpaces them in salaries, Georgia Tech, Kettering University, Rose-Hulman, Colorado School of Mines, Milwaukee School of Engineering, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, and many others in low housing cost and cost of living parts of the country still come in high on Payscale’s list - despite their being in low cost cities and states.
I disagree there is a strict correlation of engineering starting salaries with the location (cost of living) of the school. There is some correlation of course, but it is not the only factor by far. Stevens graduates command the starting salaries they do because industry is well aware that they are broad interdisciplinary problem solvers, which makes them more valuable to a business than a specialized, narrowly focused graduate (which many engineering schools in America have become). There are a handful of universities, including Stevens, that have retained their traditional broad-based, interdisciplinary, depth, and breadth of their engineering curriculum.
“Stevens graduates command the starting salaries they do because industry is well aware that they are broad interdisciplinary problem”
“I disagree there is a strict correlation of engineering starting salaries with the location (cost of living) of the school.”
So starting salaries are set typically by market conditions (which is correlated with location) and budget of the group that’s hiring. And in Google’s case, how you do in the interview. There are a couple of flaws with Paysale, one is adjusting for location, second is not including stock options. A google engineer making $80K with $500K of stock (and btw these are actual stock that vest over 3-4 years) is doing better than the NYC engineer who’s making $100k without stock options.
The university where someone does an undergrad will help in getting an interview, but not in starting salary, at that point grads of Stanford, SJSU, Purdue, USC, CMU are treated the same. And nobody is commanding any salary, if somebody wants $150K and the budget is $125K, they’ll move to the next person. Spaceman seems pretty knowledgeable in what he’s talking about, I’d listen to him for career advice!
Actually, the ROI figures surveyed by Payscale for the mid-career earnings include any additional compensation (stock options, etc.) that may be reported by the respondents for that phase of career (10 and 20 years past graduation). It’s the responsibility of those polled to report earnings of course but it would seem that anyone receiving stock options would likely report them in a survey.
I was on the recruiting committees for my departments at several of my employers. There was a budget for salaries of new hires, but I personally saw several instances in which a premium (not double the salary for example but a premium nontheless) was offered to Stevens graduates over those of other universities (particularly the state university for instance) as a result of Stevens’ reputation of educating broadly trained engineers who are comfortable with problems that may span more than just their immediate major. I am sure Spaceman and you would agree that is a valuable skill in business. Of course those students had to do well in the interview, as any would have to.
Ok if it happens out in the northeast, it happens. At the companies I worked at, we wouldn’t assume someone has a skill based on their university, it would have to come out in the interview, can the applicant articulate the business value of their engineering work and supplemented by examples. e.g. school projects that were cross-disciplinary. Companies do have favorite universities out here, but that’s determined by how alumni do at that company, which is why you see a lot of say San Jose St and ASU grads at these places.