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<p>If “a job pays what it pays”, then you don’t adjust pay based on school, you adjust who you hire. If you have a $60K position for a mechanical engineer just out of school, you get an average hire from Penn State, a top candidate from Milwaukee School of Engineering, or a lesser candidate from Texas. You probably don’t get any MIT candidates at all.</p>
<p>People paying $74K get the MIT MEs. I don’t see how this could be any more obvious.</p>
<p>Mid-career, people changing jobs expect to be paid more than they are already making, so they self-select to the high-paying jobs once again. You don’t have to figure the school into it, the alums work it out for you. I don’t see how this could be any more obvious either.</p>