<p>jym, There is a separate survey for engineers on the Cornell website that Cheers refers to
<a href=“http://www.engr.cornell.edu/student-services/engineering-coop-career-services/statistics/Engineering-Post-Graduate-Survey-Results.cfm[/url]”>http://www.engr.cornell.edu/student-services/engineering-coop-career-services/statistics/Engineering-Post-Graduate-Survey-Results.cfm</a>
In the box in the upper left hand side of the page, under the general survey, there is another link for the engineering-specific survey. It shows the $56K she mentioned.</p>
<p>thanks, MOT. I’ll see if I can navigate around that link. I was trying to use the one that was in post #1483. What are the prelim. stats in that link from? Just curious. Believe me, I would LOVE for my S to make the big bucks and take care of me in my old age (I have a signed agreement from him to do so that he wrote when he was 6! Is is right here on my computer station!)</p>
<p>“I work with lots of engineers and the best ones;ie Cornell type grads; make great great money”
Wow - so the best engineers out there are from the Ivies? And they make the most money too? Did I miss something?
As someone with decades of professional expertise in this area- I will say that - in MY experience - engineering is one of the least status-driven fields. And I also agree with the person who said that, although starting salaries are healthy, they tend to rise very slowly - unlike your typical Investment Banker or Research Analyst. Investment Banking folks get huge benefits from graduating from an Ivy - and the good ones make very huge gains in pay after a few years. Now there, you actually might have a case for taking BIG loans.</p>
<p>“Sorry Mother of Two, I misread your post. You had me worried about your hubby of 30 years. I am sure he makes much much more than $125k. Did he take out loans for Princeton? I noted that the starting Cornell salaries rose from $51k to $56 k in 2005. I work with lots of engineers and the best ones;ie Cornell type grads; make great great money.” </p>
<p>Cheers - No public comment from me on my husband’s salary. But I agree with the others that your view of the salaries of engineers in general seems inflated. It is pretty well known and well publicized that engineers have relatively high starting salaries but that their salaries tend to plateau more than some other careers, as someone else said earlier. The engineers, managers, and higher up division directors my husband works with come from a whole variety of colleges, and there does not seem to be any great correlation between their position within the organization and where they went to school. </p>
<p>My husband and I were both fortunate not to need to take out loans for college. Private college was much less expensive, relatively speaking, in the 1970s than it is now. My husband’s father was a machinist who later became a machine tool programmer - he did not graduate from college, but, due to fortunate personal circumstances and a lot of thrift and savings, was able to put his three children through private college. My father (who was one of the smartest people I have ever met) did not have the opportunity to go to college either. He was the child of immigrants who owned a small business, graduated h.s. during the Depression, and ended up eventually taking over his parents’ business, which involved working very hard six days a week and doing his accounting, etc. on Sundays. He sent both my sister and me to private college without needing to request financial aid.</p>
<p>Well, this has been a little off-topic but as long as I was discussing how my H got through school, I decided to throw my own story in too!</p>
<p>All I know is that the engineer who I go to for structural advice charges $200+/hour. Maybe I need to find someone cheaper. 
But I like him and he’s speedy.</p>
<p>
And I’ve lived a good part of my professional life trying to help people clean up and bail out of the messes they were in when they were in debt over their head, and a good deal of my personal life falling further and further behind because I was in too much debt.</p>
<p>The consequences of taking on debt beyond what you are absolutely sure you will be able to pay for can be devastating.</p>
<p>Here’s my deal: do whatever you want when it comes to taking financial risks in your own life, and advise your children how ever you want. Count your blessings and be thankful for your good luck; be especially glad that your economic plans were never waylaid because of unexpected injury or illness. </p>
<p>But please refrain from advising OTHERS to take those risks – especially impressionable and inexperienced youngsters who are faced with tough decisions… unless you personally are willing to co-sign on their loans. It is irresponsible to do anything else. </p>
<p>When I graduated from college everyone, we were entering recessionary times, and everyone, including engineering students, had a hard time finding work. The saddest thing was the very high number of engineers who were my parents’ generation – men who were then in their late 40s and early 50s, who found themselves laid off and unable to find anything near equivalent to the work they had before, after many years with one employer. </p>
<p>I don’t think life is going to get any easier over the next couple of decades, given various economic indicators. At least in my day student loans could be discharged in bankruptcy; that is no longer the case.</p>
<p>I have had some limited involvenebt with engineering salary planning and have have seen the IEEE surveys, so can speak in generalities.</p>
<p>$56K first year for highly desirable grads is reasonable today.</p>
<p>From the numbers I have seen, $150K after 10 years is not going to happen for a typical engineer. (Investment banking and starting one’s own company are not examples of typical engineering grads.) The top performers can aspire to that level later in their careers, but there are quite a few retiring engineers (not necessarily the top performers) today who have not hit $100K. An old boss of mine (the top technical guy at our divison) used to say that if you stayed in the technical side of things and did well, you could eventually hit about 2.5 times the starting salary of the “fresh-out” (fresh out of school) engineers. $60K x 2.5 = $150K. There are some regional differences, as well, but they aren’t as big as I would have expected. </p>
<p>Here is an old public link, but it shows the shape of the curve for engineers in salary vs. years of experience. It is very much like what I see today: Steep curve for the first 5-10 or so years, then rolling off. We are seeing an even steeper curve for the first 2-3 years now, to keep up with increases in incoming grads. Don’t count on that continuing.</p>
<p><a href=“http://home.znet.com/schester/calculations/salaries/salary_curve_origin.html[/url]”>http://home.znet.com/schester/calculations/salaries/salary_curve_origin.html</a></p>
<p>Note that these curves are a snapshot of a single year with different experience levels, so does not include inflation. </p>
<p>Here is a more recent link, but it doesn’t illustrate the curve as well.
<a href=“EE Times - Connecting The Global Electronics Industry”>EE Times - Connecting The Global Electronics Industry;
<p>In general, engineers are risk-averse. Love solving problems, good at math, and want a decent income right out of school? Engineering is a great profession! Is big money more important to you than stability and technical challenges? Don’t spend your career as an engineer. </p>
<p>As for top school grads commanding big bucks, I personally know of two engineers from HYPSM-type schools who are well below the average, with many counter-examples from “lesser” schools, so the diploma doesn’t guarantee nuthin’.</p>
<p>Dad’o’2’ s comments are consistent with my knowledge of this topic.</p>
<p>The high level managers at the large firms employing engineers are the ones making the very high salaries, in my observation. Becoming a high level manager seems to have a lot more to do with people skills (as well as some luck) than technical skills, and many technically inclined engineers would not enjoy this type of position, as they would no longer being doing much or any technical work.</p>
<p>There are engineering disciplines such as petroleum engineering where the opportunities are significant and likely to improve over time. The average age of a petroleum engineer is 51. Kids are not going into the field in nearly the numbers they used to. Many of the careers involve overseas stints where particularly good money can be made. That said, the engineers I know who do the best financially are not doing technical work, though many who are doing technical work feel sufficiently well paid and love their work!</p>
<p>Lots of good data on engineering salaries…
Mid 50s sounds about right for starting salaries.
Making $150 - pretty rare - even after 10 years.<br>
So - it’s generally not a good idea for future engineers to take big loans to get into a “prestigious” U? Right? Maybe it’s just me, but I think 80K is a big chunk of cash!</p>
<p>I think if you look back at what Stuck origlly said, it was that Toronto would cost him $8k/yr and Cornell would cost him $20k/yr (after finaid) and that his parents were ok with either amount, so he was just wondering should pay the higher amount for Cornell. He figured if he banked the difference he could buy an apt or something, but he really wanted to go to Cornell. I don’t think he meant borrowing $80k to go to Cornell, but somehow the discussion evolved into that.</p>
<p>imho, if your parents can afford to spend $80k for Cornell, you want to go and the parents are ok with it, then that’s what you should do. And I am a pretty risk averse stingy person.</p>
<p>otoh, $80k of loans to go to Cornell would not be my advice. There is a finaid calculator online somewhere and when I ran the numbers on another thread (it was actually a calculator for plus loans, but i think it made the point), the calculator basically always came out that you needed to be earning the amount you borrowed to “afford” the loan. ie, you needed an $80k salary to afford an $80k loan. I think this would be a good rule of thumb for a student to look at when deciding how much debt to sign on for.</p>
<p>random observation:</p>
<p>when we toured Space Center Houston (nasa facility) pretty much all the cars in all the parking lots had Texas A&M stickers/alum license thingys on them. like i said, a random observation.</p>
<p>random observation no.2:</p>
<p>we’re around oil country and yes, they do need petroleum engineers and the local state u will give you a scholarship just for agreeing to major in it, 'cause no one wants to for some reason. another thing the oil companies seem to want is geologists and girl geologists for some reason. D1’s roomate (a girl geology major) is constantly getting money thrown at her and has oil companies competing with salary offers, grad school tuition offers, under the table checks, internships, etc. trying to get her. so now seems like a good time to major in geology if anyone’s interested.</p>
<p>I agree with mercymom regarding specific advice for Stuck. My posts were intended to provide information about engineering salaries and prospects in general and were not intended as advice to any specific student making a college choice.</p>
<p>ASIDE, related to the OP (remember that? 
):</p>
<p>We now have a thread on the Parents Forum that is slightly mistitled Scholarship Weekend experiences. In that thread, there are some thoughtful responses so far (including my own ) to the experience students have had considering top scholarships from schools “below” others they’d been accepted to… but <em>NOT</em> “elite” schools. Many of us have this dilemma going now, and I wanted to be sure those who were struggling with the same issue now were alerted to stop over there. It’s not a thread about the elite name, nor about SATs, but about students being wooed by scholarship weekends to seriously consider schools they might not have ranked as highly. </p>
<p>I now return you to wherever this thread is going next. :)</p>
<p>Good conversation re: engineering. </p>
<p>So here’s the reality for us – any thoughts are appreciated.</p>
<p>Son wants to be a computer/electrical engineer. Here are his choices:</p>
<p>Ohio Univ (a virtual unknown in engineering) $10K/year (includes everything)
RPI, WPI, Rose-Hulman, Purdue, Pitt, Northeastern ~ $28K - $31K /year</p>
<p>Holding issue of “fit” constant (hard, I know - take my word on it) what do you think?</p>
<p>When we visited MIT last summer, the tour folks were telling us that many engineers were heading out to work at Ibanks, in finance, etc. If one is looking at starting salaries by school (vs. major), that might account for some of the higher salaries some folks are reporting.</p>
<p>Harvey Mudd average starting salary with B.S. (2004 data): $58,700</p>
<p>Silver,</p>
<p>The best example of your fantasy come true would seem to be St. John’s.</p>
<p>weenie, engineering is a funny field. I agree with previous posters re salary, by the way. Big bucks are elusive, and seem to apply to specific areas of engineering, consulting or management. Most engineers I know are too risk averse to start their own businesses, and the .com mania was largely fueled by business types, not real engineers.</p>
<p>That said, I do think reputation matters in engineering, although not necessarily in a private/public U sense. Some public universities are quite strong and better known for engineering than some privates, including the Ivy’s. It’s hard to beat RPI for hands-on experience. It didn’t fit my son, but for a kid who’s really a hands-on type it must be heaven. Internships etc would probably be easy to come by. The difference sounds like $20K per year. That’s still a lot, but might make sense in terms of recruiting upon graduation.</p>
<p>Although it seems like this conversation keeps going off track, Weenie’s question is truly “getting real”, as these are probably the more common decisions than the Harvard/Vanderbilt-full-ride options. Many of us are deciding between reasonably comparable non-HYPS schools where finances come into play.</p>
<p>(OK, now these are my personal opinions, for what they are worth. Flame me with small torches only, please…)</p>
<p>I really haven’t heard anything about Ohio U, but from looking at the faculty in the EE department on the web page, they seem to have some interesting avionics research work, possibly money from Wright-Patt AFB??? It does have ABET accredation, which is essential. It doesn’t make the top Engineering Universities/Schools, which the other schools on your list do.</p>
<p>Rose-Hulman is tied for first place with Harvey Mudd for non-Doctoral engineering programs. Great reputation for rolled-up-sleeves engineering.</p>
<p>RPI has a great reputation according to a EE prof friend of mine at JHU. My S has an acceptance there and we are visiting in a couple of weeks. Has a strong graduate program in case your S decides he loves research and wants to continue it.</p>
<p>WPI tends to be geared a little more toward turning out good engineers who are probably a little more “in the trenches” manipulating test equipment, etc. (so I’ve heard).</p>
<p>Purdue is a BIG school, but engineering ranking is on par with Carnegie Mellon (that is, really good, 8th overall). </p>
<p>I don’t know as much about Pitt and Northeastern, sorry.</p>
<p>Now I’m walking on eggshells:</p>
<p>I would be worried that the lack of reputation of Ohio Univeristy would limit future job options. Maybe it has a larger presence in the local market, though. Certainly if it were the only affordable alternative, it would be the best one! I might be wrong, but I would guess there could be a $10K per year difference in starting salary between Ohio U and most of your other schools (worth checking into, anyway). The $56-58K numbers thrown around here were from Cornell and Harvey Mudd. Your mileage may vary. </p>
<p>Although all schools meet ABET requirments, they do have different reputations, and this influences where you can get a job and the type of job you are going to be given when you come out. </p>
<p>As for the differences between the other schools, it really does come down to “fit” and the type of engineering and level of interest your S has. I went to a more theoretically-oriented school, and was able to take a number of graduate level courses while there. After graduation, I started working at a more systems-level of engineering than other kids who started breadboarding circuits. (Of course, some of them are now in management ($), but I’m still having fun and they are hating life.)</p>
<p>Being an engineer, I like numbers, and give more credibility than I should to the USNews Engineering peer rankings. Also, at the risk of re-igniting the SAT score debate, I also consider SAT scores of the students. Some kids “get” math and physics, while others aren’t as quick. It’s a lot more fun when you and your class-mates can all “get” it quickly and move on. I know, equating higher Math SAT score with “getting it” is a gross generalization, but I like my numbers and I’ll assume the correlation in the absence of any evidence to the contrary! (Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!)</p>
<h2>D’2</h2>
<p>P.S. I have been hearing more and more good things about RPI, and not just on this board… Rose-Hulman? ****! They were the only school to reject me 30 years ago! ;)</p>
<p>Man, this thread was burning up the ethernet. Finally it settles down.</p>
<p>Leave it to the engineers to put everyone to sleep…</p>
<p>you’re welcome…
:)</p>
<p>
That’s what comes from discussing nuts and bolts.</p>