<p>Flavian, I have to agree with jma on what he said. Let's not also forget that Upenn students tend to come from richer socioeconomic backgrounds than UIUC grads and thus will probably get better jobs simply by better connections. </p>
<p>But don't get me wrong. I also completely agree with you, Flavian, that the average Upenn grad is probably better than the average UIUC grad, even if we're talking about engineering students, simply because Penn is a more selective school than is UIUC. Hence, I agree that by virtue of that fact alone, the Upenn grad may go farther than the UIUC grad.</p>
<p>But that only illustrates one of my basic points - which is that the actual prestige of the engineering program itself seems not to provide much of a salary boost. After all, the grads of a nonprestigious engineering program like New Mexico Tech get starting salaries that are almost as good as (and sometimes better than) the grads of highly prestigious engineering programs. After you've been working for a number of years, I agree that the better person will tend to make more money, but that's a function of the person himself, not where he went to school. Let's face it. After you've been working for awhile and it comes time for promotion or raises, nobody is going to care about where you graduated from. They're only going to care about how the quality of your work. </p>
<p>As a corollary, remember what I am trying to demonstrate here. I am demonstrating that there is a strong salary compression phenomena at work here when it comes to engineering - in other words, that engineering is pretty good for the people who are not stars, but not so good for those who are stars (because star engineers don't really get star pay). After all, look at the starting salaries of those no-name schools I mentioned. They're almost the same as the salaries of the prestige schools. I would argue that the average Cornell engineer is much better than the average New Mexico Tech or Montana Tech engineer, but that Cornell engineer is not getting a starting salary that is "much better". They're all getting approximately the same starting salary. Even later in life, let's say the Cornell engineer is making 100k and the New Mexico Tech engineer is making 75k. That's still not "much better". In other words, being a star engineer is not really that much better than just being a normal engineer. What that means is that the incentives for being a star engineer are weak. Why work hard to be a star engineer if the benefits aren't that good? </p>
<p>Basic economics dictate that the more incentives you give to people to do something, the more that those people will do that thing. The US seems to give very strong incentives for regular people to get 'average' engineering degrees. If you're just an average student (or maybe above average, but not a star student) in rural Western Montana, then going to Montana Tech and getting a 50k starting salary is a really sweet deal. After all, honestly, what else are you going to do? However, if you're a star, then you may be able to do better doing something else.</p>