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<p>The data also includes 25th and 75th percentile information. So you can draw yourself a picture of the distribution of pay.</p>
<p><a href=“http://career.berkeley.edu/CarDest/2004Majors.stm#salary[/url]”>http://career.berkeley.edu/CarDest/2004Majors.stm#salary</a></p>
<p>For example, take Mechanical Enginering. The data shows that the distribution isn’t that wide-ranging. The 25th percentile of CS students get 50k. The 75th percentile get 62k. That’s not THAT big of a difference. It’s only 12k a year. </p>
<p>Another way you can look at it is to look at the salaries of lesser schools. For example, consider the salaries at San Jose State.</p>
<p><a href=“http://careercenter.sjsu.edu/download/SJSU%20NACESalary%20Survey%2004%2005.pdf[/url]”>http://careercenter.sjsu.edu/download/SJSU%20NACESalary%20Survey%2004%2005.pdf</a></p>
<p>Granted, the SJSU salaries are for 2005, whereas the Berkeley data is for 2004, so it’s not perfectly comparable. Nevertheless, I would point out that the SJSU Mechanical Engineers are making an average of 56.7k in 2005. That compares extremely favorably to the average of Berkeley mechanical engineers of 2004 who were making 55.9k. </p>
<p>Let’s face it. Berkeley is a much better mechanical engineering school than SJSU is. Yet the salaries of the grads are roughly the same. </p>
<p>What that illustrates is that there really isn’t that much ‘range’ of salaries. The truth is, most people within a given major and a given geographic location are going to get paid about the same, maybe give or take $10k or so. There really isn’t that much reward for doing extremely well in school. Those who are academically strong (like the Berkeley engineers) don’t get paid substantially more than the less academically strong (like the SJSU engineers), as long as we are talking about the same major.</p>