The GPA vs. job prospects seems like a good question to ask … sort of how do your graduates do in finding jobs, even the ones without GPAs over 3.0 ? The more vigorous schools are well known by employers … and they probably add 0.2 or so to schools without grade inflation.
While Purdue may accept lower level students, graduating from Purdue in engineering is a different statistical subset, those who have worked hard and mastered the material. A 2.8 is still almost all Bs, and Purdue does not give gentleman’s Bs … you have to know the difficult material.
What I would guess is that engineering programs that are less selective, and there are fewer of these every year, just have a bigger attrition rate, people who start in engineering and end up graduating with a different major.
I am thinking that even at good employers there is a pretty good range of GPAs, I would be surprised if any place other than the Googles have tons of people over 3.5. Smaller companies would have less options to snub people at 3.0.
And my guess is that if you work hard at a smaller company and really start building an impressive skill set and resume … you could move to a bigger company. Or move into management or something, where your people skills and work ethic make you effective, and leave the technical heavy lifting to those who excel at that.