OK, folks, if you’re going to compare COL, you need to compare like with like. Not an exurb of metro A with the middle of the business area of metro B.
Nerdwallet has NYC being 23% more expensive than SF, which is more consistent with my experience: https://www.nerdwallet.com/cost-of-living-calculator/compare/new-york-manhattan-vs-san-francisco
You can find a 1Br for $2K/month in the exurbs of the Bay Area as well.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Actually, if you want to compare CoL, open anew discussion, please.
Yes, one needs to compare like with like. The original comparison was between a suburb of NYC and a suburb of SF, so that was essentially like to like. The salary figures reported by schools are across the board of all the respondents’ locations.
Then that means that the Payscale numbers that you like to cite for boosting Stevens are similarly suspect, right? (And more so because they do not account for differing mixes of majors at each school.)
Now, if you want to make CoL arguments, compare to Alabama…
In fact, looking at this, there is something seriously wrong with the CS numbers, in reality there is no significant difference between a UCB CS grad and a Stevens CS grad and therefore there is no way that any manager at a CS company is going to value one over the other to the tune of $40K. Silicon Valley does pay significantly more due to COL but for a manager to think “I value UCB over Stevens I am willing to pay 40K more a year for a UCB grad” is ludicrous.
Silicon Valley, particularly companies in the software/internet industry such as Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc, whom people consider to be the “tech leaders” of today (“Tech” to many means computers and software, because that is most of the “tech” with which they personally come in contact or use directly. I dispute that, all of those companies would not exist without the underlying technology in communications, electronics, computers, and information theory that was developed notably by Bell Labs and others for example) are used to paying outsized salaries because they can afford to do so and because of the high cost of living in the SV area in general, making it necessary to pay those salaries to attract people to live there. The Wall Street investment banking industry pays big salaries also for the same reasons. The type of industry and location have a large influence on salaries.
@ucbalumnus - all salary figures are going to have some degree of bias or statistical incompleteness of course. I still trust Payscale more than I do the school itself, which has an inherent self interest in cherry picking data or inflating those numbers.
I’d like to point out that SF isn’t located in Silicon Valley.
Actually after thinking about this for a while it has become clear why the numbers are so different for CS. This is not a UCB/Stevens phenomena, this is a Silicon Valley phenomena. Silicon Valley is a high CS demand area and pays 100K+ for CS majors, which naturally UCB benefits from as do most of the other colleges in that area. Even though you might find COL areas in NY just as high the demand for CS majors in nowhere near the demand in SV, which means the salaries paid on the NY area by companies are much less than SV. So again, people have taken data and assumed false conclusions from it (e.g. UCB CS grads will get paid 40K more than Stevens grad irrelevant of the part of the country they work in). So in the end, Stevens grads that choose to work in SV will make the same salaries as UCB grads in SV, is the correct analysis.
Actually, no one here is making that argument, although one poster appears to be pushing that argument for Stevens over other schools.
By a similar argument, Stevens CS graduates find a $9,200 (13%) higher average pay than Alabama CS graduates ($78,200 versus $69,000). But given the cost of living, would you argue that it is because employers value Stevens over Alabama, or because the cost of living in Hoboken, NJ is higher than in Tuscaloosa, AL (e.g. median house price is over 5 times higher in Hoboken, NJ than in Tuscaloosa, AL and many other places in the state of Alabama)?
Of course, that ignores the effect of each school’s mix of majors, as noted many times before. Choosing the majors offered at Stevens (71% engineering + CS) has a much greater effect on post-graduation pay than choosing Stevens over some other school for the same major. Stevens does well mainly because it “cherry picks” high paying majors. Note that most other colleges at the top of those same Payscale ROI rankings have similar characteristics (concentration of high paying majors or professional pathways).
But if you want Payscale ROI ratings, they now have some by major groupings. One grouping is engineering majors, where Stevens ranks 145 (versus Rutgers in-state at 105):
https://www.payscale.com/college-roi/major/engineering
Another grouping is CS + math, where Stevens ranks 47 (versus Rutgers in-state at 50):
https://www.payscale.com/college-roi/major/computer-science
Facebook, Google, Amazon, IBM, and others have facilities in NYC, but NYC itself isn’t the computer industry and software mecca to the extent that Silicon Valley can claim that distinction.
@ucbalumnus - Most Stevens graduates don’t settle in Hoboken by the way, and it isn’t true anymore that the vast majority settle in the NY metro area either. Today only about half do. There is much more mobility and geographic diversity among them today than there was 15 or 20 years ago.
@ucbalumnus It only takes one.
All the data you present is too generalized to make specific conclusions. I’ll agree that as you go down the list of schools (and where they rank) that very generally you will find that salaries decrease too. Those graduating from CSU’s in the SV area aren’t going to get the offers UCB CS students will get. However in comparing like schools (Stevens is comparable to UCB) a 4.0 UCB CS students will get the same offers as a 4.0 Stevens CS student, or at least there won’t be a 40K difference as suggested by the one poster/the data you presented.
“Too many of us simply believe whatever we find on the internet.”
This is not internet, this is actual information I have on starting salaries given to grads entering silicon valley tech companies and not just from UCB, but others as well. Admittedly these are larger corporations so there could be some bias there, smaller companies will give out less base salary and more stock, and maybe a larger annual bonus if targets are met.
“I think that is only in CS and its $78K vs $107K but if you make decisions based on these tables, be my guest I doubt that UCB grads have anything on Stevens grads.”
If the decision is to attend Berkeley or Stanford over Stevens or Alabama for CS or EECS, or computer engineering, that’s a good one.
“their salary will reflect the norms of this area and they won’t be making 35% higher just because they went to UCB”
The reason Berkeley and Stanford grads get a higher salary is that they come in with a year or so of experience and not at entry level. They typically do internships three summers and work during the school year since the companies are local, so they have a year’s experience. I’m assuming it would be similar for colleges in NYC/NJ/Conn area to do the same thing in finance say.
Just because you attend UCB or Stanford doesn’t mean you get job, let’s make that clear. You may get the first internship or interview easier, but you still have to do well in the internship for companies to bring you back or the interview for the offer.
“Assuming UCB’s salary figure is correct (keep in mind that these figures - from any school - are self-reported by graduates”
Ok but PayScale also bases their rankings on surveys, self-reported by graduates, I agree they have more data to work with, but they also admit they have a margin of error. The salary figure looks reasonable - if it’s total compensation for the first year, typically it will be 80-90K and a 10-20% bonus.
@theloniusmonk - Stevens has one of the largest co-op and internship programs in American universities. 60% of the the engineering and CS students have co-ops and/or internships, and also graduate with a year’s work experience (in the co-op program) and enter the full time work force with that experience.
Co-op students at Stevens and elsewhere work off-campus in industry for a total of a year, usually consisting of work semesters interspersed with their on-campus attendance. This differs from an internship where the students usually work during the summer and possibly part time during the regular semester. The co-op program is five years by design, including the year of off-campus work experience (the student pays tuition only for the four years on campus, however). UCB and Stanford do not have a monopoly on co-ops and internships. Many schools have them.
Given the large difference in cost of living between the Silicon Valley computer industry hub and the New Jersey and upstate New York suburbs, those differences in salary are understandable. Again, adjusted for COL they aren’t very different.
As both a working engineer and a manager who has interviewed and hired engineers from a plurality of schools and backgrounds, I can say that as a group engineers from UCB and Stanford aren’t any more capable than those from Stevens, believe me. I’ve worked with effective and ineffective people from a wide range of schools.
I think I’ve been pretty clear that these salaries are based on a Silicon Valley effect, not a UCB effect. If you can show me where UCB graduates are offered more than comparable schools (including Stevens) at the same companies/location then I’ll believe it, but you won’t be able to do that because it’s simply a false presumption.
No dog in this hunt but every ranking out there has UCB much, much higher than Stevens. For example, USNWR has UCB #3 in best engineering colleges, right behind MIT & Stanford and Stevens #78 (tied with the University of Kansas).
QS Top Universities For Engineering in the World has UCB in the top 5 in several engineering categories. Stevens in not even in the top 100.
Rankings are not everything, but when you look at many different criteria and get similar results, it’s very telling any way you slice it.
BTW - UCB’s COA is 36K (in-state); Stevens is 70K.
Seems like a no-brainer which engineering school in-state residents should choose. Better overall college, one of the best engineering prgrams in the world, much cheaper, amazing location (SF bay area), very good weather, lots of diversity, Div I sports, etc.
Would you also say that, as a group, engineers from Stevens are not any more capable than those from Rutgers, Rowan, NJIT, TCNJ, Stony Brook, Buffalo, Binghamton, Alabama, etc.?
No one is claiming what you apparently think they are claiming. But someone is trying to give the impression that Stevens graduates are offered more than those from other schools simply because they graduated from Stevens, rather than choice of major or location.
@socaldad2002 - Again, no more capable, rankings notwithstanding.
Of course it’s cheaper (for California residents), it’s a public institution. I discount academic rankings. If you believe in them, that is your choice.
@ ucbalum - Like I said I have worked with capable and not-so-capable folks from a wide range of schools. I worked with a couple of MIT graduates who couldn’t design anything for example. Guess who were passed over for promotion in favor of a state university graduate? With respect to the schools you mentioned however I can tell you that Stevens’ curriculum is far broader and deeper outside the specific area of engineering specialty or major than the others you named, as well as the qualifications of the students (e.g., high school GPA, class standing, and SAT/ACT scores) being considerably greater. As I said earlier Stevens graduates are well known for being able to effectively solve problems of an interdisciplinary nature and to “think outside the box”, because of that breadth and depth of the engineering curriculum outside of their specific major. Many engineering schools today have become narrowly specialized. Here in NJ, Rutgers and TCNJ are considered safeties for those who cannot gain admission to Stevens or other area schools with higher standards of admission, and NJIT is considered a last resort safety (admits 68% of its applicants, and their average SAT is 1120) for example.
@ucbalumnus nobody is claiming this !?!? Ref post 77
So let’s compare UCB vs it’s peers, UM/UVA/UIUC/GT, @ucbalumnus your good at mining data how do those salaries compare in the same majors?