The question is not whether Berkeley is ranked higher than UW in computer science. It is - although not by a whole lot. Berkeley’s a top 5 CS program and UW is top 10-15. The difference is not significant. Name recognition in every country in the world is irrelevant if you are going to spend your working life in the U.S., and quite frankly, after your first or second job where you went to undergrad doesn’t matter anymore anyway. Getting international gigs after that point depends more on where you’ve worked before and whether your job has international locations.
The question is whether Berkeley is worth an additional $104,000 over four years. And I definitely don’t think it is. Berkeley EECS may be slightly better than UW CS in some areas and maybe even a lot better than UW in one or two, but we’re talking about a six-figure pay gap. That’s an entire year of salary, even for a well-paid CS student. As someone already pointed out, you’re not going to get offered more salary just because you went to Berkeley. And if we’re talking about job opportunities and alumni connections, UW graduates obviously have them. They partner with most of not all of the very large tech companies that are located in the Seattle area. There are lots of internships to be had in Seattle. There are a lot of opportunities post-graduation to be had. UW CS is noted as one of the top in the country.
If your goal is job opportunities and alumni connections post-college, you can get them with UW, and they will be more than sufficient to connect you to some of the top tech companies in the world. So why would you pay so much more?