<p>Bobwallace, my DH works in a company laden with top graduates. Yes, there is an income range for each position that opens, but when there is an entry level position that is likely to be filled by someone newly graduated from college, I can assure you that the college makes absolutely no difference in what the pay is going to be. The ranges are even narrower for engineering type jobs. There are a number of reasons why those who graduate from the most selective and well known schools willl have higher average pay, and I’ve gone into that in some detail,but it’s not because when a position opens for a new graduate, a company is going to pay more for the MIT guy straight out of school over the Connecticut grad. There would have to be special skills and experience involved tin order for that pay adjustment to be made. That MIT may give more opportunities for their students to gain those skiils, is possible. That the MIT grad will be more likely to snag the higher paying jobs, is something I would expect. Tha given a room of MIT grads, and XYZ Uni grads, that the MIT ones as a whole are a more impressive group in terms of special skills, knowing the material better, better ideas and quicker synapses, I would hope so. But would every single MIT grad be better than every single XYZ grade. Absolutely not. There would be some at XYZ with the brain power, innovative thinking that would match the top MIT grads and there will be some losers in the MIT crowd too, including the guy who might have the brain power but picks his nose and eats it. (happened, i’m not making this up)</p>