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</p>
<p>This is certainly not the case for the engineers we hire - starting pay varies over a wide range based on the quality of the candidates, and the school is one of the factors that goes into that.</p>
<p>This is also not supported by the numbers from various schools. According to this WSJ survey, Rochester Institute of Technology grads median $49K starting salary, whereas Massachusetts Institute of Technology grads median $72K starting salary (and lots of other schools in between):</p>
<p><a href=“http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-Salaries_for_Colleges_by_Type-sort.html[/url]”>http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-Salaries_for_Colleges_by_Type-sort.html</a></p>
<p>Also the opportunities can be very different at different engineering schools (one of the factors that goes into the differences above), particularly the recruiters who target the different schools.</p>
<p>That said, the difference between GT and NC State is not large, and not worth paying $80K extra over four years, IMHO. I’m a Georgia Tech grad, so I’m biased, but I wouldn’t pay that difference for my kid. College rankings are 90% malarkey, and picking schools by ranking is a bad approach, IMHO.</p>
<p>Charlies, I’m brand new to this so that’s sopmething worth exploring in NC</p>
<p>Bob, thanks for the inside information and the link. GT takes pride in their 65k starting average(their estimate), NC State says 55k I believe. She’s leaning toward civil so they didn’t drill down that far in the numbers. Those numbers may represent the mechanical and electrical more that civil</p>
<p>*Originally Posted by mom2collegekids</p>
<h2>do you realize that when she’s hired, the company is going to pay her same regardless of where she went to school. The company will be paying the NC State grads the same as the GT grads.</h2>
<p>This is certainly not the case for the engineers we hire - starting pay varies over a wide range based on the quality of the candidates, and the school is one of the factors that goes into that.*</p>
<p>Then your company is more of an exception. Starting eng’g salaries is an area that my family and I are very familiar with since my entire family consists of engineering managers, directors, and VPs for high tech companies across the US. </p>
<p>And, each company pays starting engineers (new BS grads) the SAME whether they went to CSU Long Beach, Purdue, GT, UAH, UCLA, Cal, Iowa State, Umich or Cornell. </p>
<p>It’s actually quite shocking for new hires with substantial debt to find out that their starting salaries are the same as their other new colleague who went to the local CC and transferred to the local state school and has no loans. </p>
<p>this isn’t something that only I have stated on this forum, many others in the engineering field have said as well.</p>
<p>m2ck, the numbers speak for themselves. The median salary for MIT grads is $72K and for RIT grads is $49K. Where you go to school matters, because who you work for matters. So maybe your company pays everybody the same, it doesn’t really matter whether they do or not, it just means that if they are paying $49K RIT type salaries that they can’t compete for MIT grads, because they can’t pay enough to hire them.</p>
<p>If you’re saying that MIT (or maybe Cal Tech) grads get hired by a few companies that only hire folks like them and pay them more, that may be the case. But that’s not the case for nearly ALL other eng’g grads. A Purdue grad doesn’t get paid more than a CSUF grad who is hired by the same company (at least not enough to make any noticable difference).</p>
<p>It’s a myth to think that a person has to go to Purdue or GT or UMich or Cal in order to get paid more. </p>
<p>(but, ha ha, don’t get me started on my weird MIT coworker who had to be “regroomed” on a daily basis.)</p>
<p>The “myth” in this case is that every engineer gets paid the same coming out of school. There is a range of salaries at every school, and a range of averages from school to school. </p>
<p>The college is not the biggest factor, it’s mostly about the personal qualities of the candidate, but it is a factor.</p>
<p>If your company pays everyone the same, then that limits the candidates they will be able to hire. If they are paying $50K for EE grads, then they can’t hire MIT or CalTech at all, they can maybe hire the very bottom of the pool from Georgia Tech, and they can get average candidates from LSU or Mississippi State.</p>
<p>The question is not whether grads from different schools get paid differently - clearly they do - the question is whether the school made the difference or the school simply has a better pool of candidates due to admission standards. I don’t have any statistics to answer that one way or another, I only have the anecdotal evidence that it makes a difference to us in our hiring. All things being equal, we pay a premium for MIT, Rice, etc. grads because if we don’t they will go to work somewhere else. We still hire from NC State, in fact we’ve had excellent success with our hires from there, but they get a lower starting salary.</p>
<p>When looking at recent starting salaries, please realize that employment opportunities for new civil engineering grads was not great during the Great Recession. Many governments delayed infrastructure projects and many new land developments were put on hold. Many civil engineers were laid off as a result, and some had trouble getting full-time jobs. However, that also means they may be poised for a big recovery, because of pent up demand.</p>
<p>Bob…what folks are saying…the same company hiring for the same job will pay the same salary.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that many MIT grads are part of venture capital and start up companies, in addition to being hired by SOME companies with deeper pockets. SOME, not all.</p>
<p>My husband has done hiring of engineers for a long while. An MIT grad applying for a job with his firm will get paid the same as someone from no name university with an engineering degree, assuming like experience, a PE (required at DH’s firm), and relevant previous work experience.</p>
<p>Thumper1 is totally correct. I’ve been a hiring manager for 25 years. A position is slotted to pay a certain amount. Graduates from different schools with the same degree and experience get paid the same.</p>
<p>It is a pet peeve of mine that schools package federal and state money that a student can get nearly anywhere as they are entitlement funds, as money of their own. Apparently it is standard protocol to package the subsidized part of the Stafford loans as such and any work study funds, and most all colleges that give these out as financial aid, including some of the more generous schools do this. </p>
<p>Some even package PLUS (parent direct loans) in there which is truly misleading since they are not even guaranteed–the parents have to apply and get accepted. Some past payments on the credit report and they can be declined, just like that. At least VT didn’t stick them in the package for the rest of the cost.</p>
<p>It is no secret that many state schools use the OOS student pool to get more money. The hefty differentials can make a big difference. I don’t recall what the differential is for VT, but what I have seen with Michigan and some other school have made my eyebrows go up. At those numbers and with scant merit money and no guarantee to meet need and hardly any need met, you’re better off applying to some privates. If you peruse this board, you’ll see a lot of people venting as you are with like packages. Someone wrote out a warning about expectations for aid packaged for those OOS at UMD, for example. It doesn’t happen, not often. In state gets first dibs. When looking at OOS schools, if you need or want money, that is something to investigate. UVA, for instance, will meet ful need of its students, both in and out of state, but it is one of the only state schools that do that. </p>
<p>Most of the state schools, flagships even, do not meet full need of their own state students. I say shame to many of them as it makes it nearly impossible for those who have need to even go to state school. Community college only takes care of half the issue as the student will have to transfer in two years and the costs only go up. </p>
<p>So vent away, but what you got there, is really typical. Congrats to your DD for netting some nice merit at those other schools.</p>
<p>Whether a particular job pays the same regardless of credentials is irrelevant. All that means is they will hire from the pool of candidates that match to that salary.</p>
<p>Things change once an engineer has experience, but the differences remain, as you can see from the mid-career median salaries in the link I posted. MIT Mid-Career Median salary is $126K, RIT Mid-Career Median is $86K, Georgia Tech is in the middle at $106K.</p>
<p>Bob…are those salaries for ALL MIT grads mid career or for engineers only?</p>
<p>And like I said earlier…there is a %age of MIT grads who are part of start up and venture capital enterprises. These can be VERY lucrative.</p>
<p>I will further say…when hiring, my husband doesn’t even look at the school from which the diploma was granted. It doesn’t matter to him at all.</p>
<p>And FWIW, his mid year salary far exceeded MITs and he did.not graduate from MIT or a peer school.</p>
<p>If you read the link I provided you will see that the 90th percentile mid-career for every engineering school listed beats the MIT median.</p>
<p>Mid-career, it doesn’t matter whether the recruiter considers the school or not, what matters is whether the candidate considers the salary in accepting a position. Most do.</p>
<p>Though there are employers who do look at the college, they are not going to pay more for someone right out of MIT. Where it helps to have a name brand school is in snagging a job through alumni connections and when there are those who are hiring and do prefer the name brands. I’m not going to say it doesn’t matter where one gets the degree, but I don’t thing very many employers, none that I know, will pay differently according to the school giving out the degree. Often you are better off with a degree from a local school when looking for a job in an area, as many of the hiring employers are alums and any tinge of favoritism can go towards those form their alma mater.</p>
<p>There has to be some outstanding reason other than name of the school when weighting VT against ones’ home states engineering dept vs other schools that have offered decent aid.</p>
<p>They are not the same, Bobwallace, and I don’t think one will deny that going to MIT will give you a better crack at the higher paying jobs. Not to mention the fact that those students who get their engineering degrees from MIT are prsscreened to the whazoo to get accepted there, and are more likelty to get the top positions. But I don’t know of any company that will hire someone right out of school and set the pay according to where he graduated. There is a benefit being an alum at those name schools, no doubt about it. Some it comes from having famly and connections that got you into such schools, and some of it is sheer name recognition.</p>
<p>It is a highly touted fact that a higher,much higher % of kids going to a certain private high school will get into Harvard as opposed to a given public school. But sending your kid to that private high school is no guarantee that his chances of getting into H are higher simply from the virtue of going to that private school. There are a lot of things that up students’ chances that go there that do not pertain to that given student like alumni status, connections, development, etc.</p>
<p>So it is with a student who goes to MIT, though with an engineering school, the merit is much more of a factor. But even without giving legacy preference, one can see what kind of kids tend to go to MIT , and their families are not that different from those of their ivy league counterparts. My very dear friend is a Horatio Alger type who was one of the very, very few graduates from MIT that was PELL (or the equivalent) eligible when he went there. Got his engineering master’s there, and was paid exactly the same of those who went to the schools that you have listed with the same credentials he had. A bit of jump since he was American and spoke English perfectly–there is a shortage of US engineers with Masters degrees. But he hired engineers from any number of schools; his DD is now in the process of college decisions, and he will unequivocally tell you that the pays are not set by graduating schools.</p>
<p>The fact of the matter is that those who go to, say Milwaukee School of Engineering are more likely to be looking for jobs more local to that area. And grads do have their circle of acquiantances. The families and backgrounds, connections of MIT grads do have profiles quite different from state school grads. </p>
<p>But absolutely, I would recommend going to MIT over other engineering schools if you can get accepted there and can afford to go there. Would it be worth a cost differential of ,say, $150K over 4 years that a family can’t cough up and have to borrow for the kid? That’ s when one has to weigh these issues.</p>
<p>Cost of living in Milwaukee is far less
than the greater Boston area. One would hope that the salaries would be better in Boston!</p>
<p>Wonder if MIT grads living in Milwaukee have higher salaries than other engineers in Milwaukee? </p>
<p>Wonder of MIT grads living in Boston have higher salaries than other grads living in Boston.</p>
<p>You can’t wave this away as cost of living difference - that’s why I included Stevens, in a very high cost area.</p>
<p>Lies, damned lies, and statistics. </p>
<p>A job pays what it pays. We never adjust pay based on school. And once you get that first job school is not considered. Only job performance. Fact</p>
<p>It’s not just COL differences, but a number of other factors. Seriously, I don’t think you will get many who will turn down MIT for Stevens because the name brand luster is real not just the sparkly. The question comes down to how much more it is worth when the money is coming out of your own pocket or in the form of loans at 6-8% interest, maybe more. The other thing one must keep in mind is that the those graduating from MIT may have a lot more in terms of opportunities than those from Stevens, in that the families that tend to send their kids to MIT, have more wherewithal and connections to place a kid. A lot of kids who have to do it all themselves coming out of school like Stevens. The MIT grads I know , have several situation that friends and families in the know have already lined up for them. Not to mention the MIT network. So the jobs available in the higher ranges tend to be more readily available to those from the name schools. I don’t deny that for an instant. The gap, however, is nothing like it is, for those who go into a liberal arts curriculum and taking two colleges like Harvard and Private Not Well Known U.</p>