Comparing salaries from different engineering schools is too broad. Some engineering majors salaries have a lot wider range/dispersion than others. What you are considering for a major will have a big impact.
One key issue is whether you like to be the smart kid, or whether you like to be a smart kid in a sea of smart kids.
“these managers are deliberately giving employees that didn’t go to MIT or Caltech the crap jobs (if they even hire them in the first place), and then deliberately not promoting them if they do well anyway due solely to the fact that they didn’t go to MIT or Caltech. How, again, is that not hamstringing these employees?”
First of all, there aren’t that many MIT or Caltech grads at my company. Many more come from UCB, UCLA, Stanford, Purdue, Michigan, etc.
The employees doing the “crap jobs” can indeed have a successful career. They can be extremely accomplished at churning out results. In fact, this can perversely inhibit one’s career because the managers will keep “going back to the same well” when assigning repetitive tasks. Do it correctly, and do it fast, and they are happy.
But those folks then tend not to get the interesting, complex assignments with high “visibility” (#1 tasks). The folks doing the repetitive work may be promoted, but only to a certain level. The ones climbing higher do the #1 tasks extremely well and are most valued at my company.
^ “most valued” means promotions to the highest levels, corporate awards, highest salaries, etc.
Let’s face it… the vast majority of US engineers did NOT go to the few limited slots at the tippy top schools. And the world does not crumble.
^ True. But that’s a non sequitur in a thread aimed at “quantifying benefits.”
So are the trends at one very obviously outlier of a company.
So far, we have three data points: mine, yours, and fractalmstr’s (although s/he hasn’t actually divulged his/her experience base). It’s hardly appropriate to call 1 out of 3 an outlier, statistically. I think that you know that.
I hope that others will weigh in. The issue is not clear cut, hence the existence of this thread.
I continue to think that an MIT education can have “benefits” over that from “Utah State”. You disagree. No problem. Just don’t jump the gun and pass judgment on my experience as an “outlier”.
I mean, a lot of us do respect and understand the merits of a top-tier school education over a somewhat lower ranked one, but you’ve created such a disgustingly incorrect strawman that none of us can actually defend Elite U in the context of this discussion. I will also note that among the many companies I’ve worked with, many of which have plenty of choice in who to recruit, your experiences are far removed from reality and your generalizations couldn’t be more wrong.
I think “the plural of anecdote is not data” is appropriate here.
Should I include all the companies I’ve worked at or at which my friends work who have climbed the ladder without an MIT education? I respect that your company apparently has it out for non MIT/Caltech/Stanford graduates (though it baffles me that they are still competitive with policies like that), but in no way is that representative of the broader market. Engineering isn’t law. Pedigree only gets you so far before ability and achievements trump.
The consensus here is that the engineering profession is egalitarian. So, in contrast to many other professions (law, medicine, finance, and academia spring to mind) your educational pedigree in engineering is completely nugatory. The VAST majority of employers, managers, and working engineers really couldn’t care less where you went to college. (A degree is a degree is a degree.) The only thing that matters is what you are able to accomplish after you graduate and start your career. It’s completely up to you! So, you can get an engineering education from literally anywhere. It really doesn’t matter.
So, let’s cut to the chase, and answer the OP’s question:
Emphatically, no. MIT and its “ilk” (Caltech, Harvey Mudd, etc.) confer zero benefits. In the financial realm, there is no verifiable evidence that one’s ROI is higher after receiving a degree from one of these institutions. (The PayScale data are self reported, regionally biased, completely worthless, and must be ignored!) So, don’t blow money at these private universities, if you don’t receive fantastic FA. It’s definitely not worth it.
Moreover, there is no benefit in enduring the infamous rigor of an engineering education at MIT/Caltech/Harvey Mudd/… Why in the world would you put yourself through that? It’s completely unnecessary. Relax! In your career, you will have the same opportunities (promotions, awards, plum assignments, etc.) if you attend Utah State as you would if you attended any of those so-called elite engineering schools. I repeat: it’s all up to you!
I think that about sums it up, folks.
I clicked on this thread because I honestly thought that some readers would find my experience and opinions relevant, interesting, and helpful. Boy, was I wrong! I was clueless that anything that I would write could ever be considered “disgustingly incorrect”. That’s a first for me on CC. My continued participation in this thread is obviously neither welcome nor considered constructive, so I’ll bow out now.
That’s not at all what we are saying. What we are saying is that in most places, your accomplishments and skills matter more than your pedigree in engineering. That does not mean there is not added value in a degree from MIT/Caltech/etc.
For example, even in the most egalitarian of companies, you are probably going to have an easier time getting your foot in the door as an entry-level engineer with an impressive pedigree, particularly if you are otherwise a borderline candidate. If you have a slightly low GPA but come from Caltech, it’s more likely that someone will invite you for an interview than the same GPA from East Jesus State.
There are also going to be a wider array of companies working to actively recruit students from the highly renowned programs than at smaller, more regional programs.
That said, once you get the job and have been there a few years, far more often than not your accomplishments will trump your educational pedigree.
Nontraditional career paths for engineers like finance are a different story and are often far more open to MIT students than others.
Academia also tends to be more pedigree focused than engineering as a whole, but that can be overcome through some combination of having a good advisor, great research, and good networking.
So no, we aren’t saying going to those famous schools is useless. We are saying that the largest tangible benefits in traditional engineering fields are skewed heavily toward the start of your career and that there are also large benefits for nontraditional career paths.
@whatisyourquest, most importantly…I seek the Grail. 
Now I think most here agree that an elite degree confers some intangible advantages. The question is what is that worth. More on point with the OP’s question, not what is it worth relative to just any school, but what’s it worth relative to some pretty well known and respected programs in CA. They are both really good questions without clear answers, but the OP didn’t ask about Chico State. The Utah State angle is a non sequitur.
“Moreover, there is no benefit in enduring the infamous rigor of an engineering education at MIT/Caltech/Harvey Mudd/… Why in the world would you put yourself through that? It’s completely unnecessary. Relax! In your career, you will have the same opportunities (promotions, awards, plum assignments, etc.) if you attend Utah State as you would if you attended any of those so-called elite engineering schools. I repeat: it’s all up to you!”
and
'Emphatically, no. MIT and its “ilk” (Caltech, Harvey Mudd, etc.) confer zero benefits."
Sure. This poster recommends going to a chill school over those with more rigorous curriculums. But suggests that no advantage is conferred to those who attend the rigorous schools which people know to be schools like MIT, Caltech, Harvey Mudd, etc. with rigorous exacting curriculums and expectations.
Does that make sense to you? Is there any profession on the planet where top employees say " Hey, I want to hire those from the relaxed schools rather than the rigorous ones?" or where the most competent professionals are more likely to be those trained in programs known to allow students to “relax” over those that demand rigor and are exacting. Hey what the heck, don’t worry about those measurements, close is good enough! Hey, don’t fret over a few errors in that code, chill! Ahh, yeah the surgeon took off the wrong limb but it was close wasn’t it?
“…it’s all up to you!”. Nope it isn’t. That is why students attend college. That isn’t to say a student can’t be successful graduating from Utah. But a winning betting person would put the money on the graduate from the less chill schools with the rigorous curriculum.
Think clearly about this problem.
^ Thanks, lostaccount! I agree with you. Wow, I found a compatriot. Maybe my thought process in this thread wasn’t “total BS” after all.
Let me explain…
My post #69 was a tongue-in-cheek summary of positions of other posters on this thread. i even adopted specific phrases and universities that they have used. If you read all of the posts you’ll see that I was pounded for suggesting that managers care about your educational pedigree and might assign tasks based on their perceptions of your engineering prowess. Go figure.
Do you see any any “relaxing” schools in the title? I only see the best and the most rigorous public schools in the country.
You didn’t suggest that “managers care about pedigree”. You suggested that managers actively ignore and sabotage the careers those who don’t have the MIT/Caltech/etc pedigree regardless of their other accomplishments and abilities. Those are two different positions.
@CAmom2020 You are correct. If this thread had stuck to comparisons of the schools explicitly listed in the title, we might have found more agreement. But read through this thread and you’ll see that several posters were happy to expand the list to include Utah State and Arizona State, among others.
MIT Salary Survey. Note the MEng which I believe is only EECS, and is a 5 year Bachelor’s Master’s program
https://gecd.mit.edu/sites/default/files/documents/2015-gss-survey.pdf
Median is $110K!
Benefits quantified!
@boneh3ad No, I never said that “managers actively ignore and sabotage the careers those who don’t have the MIT/Caltech/etc pedigree regardless of their other accomplishments and abilities.” I said that the repetitive tasks are necessary at my company and that managers are very happy with employees that perform these tasks accurately and rapidly. So, one can have a successful career doing this kind of repetitive work. However, the people that are assigned the tasks that require innovation tend to receive the highest recognition/promotions/awards, and those folks are generally perceived to have the “best” engineering education. The managers assume (perhaps correctly) that those that attend the most rigorous schools are best equipped to handle the very challenging state-of-the-art tasks.
Very few people I work with have elite undergraduate education. Many do have degrees from elite graduate schools. I think it really doesn’t make a huge difference if you get your undergrad from #1 or #17 world ranked school.