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You're paying SV prices because you're getting paid more than you could otherwise anywhere else.

Yes, for the average rank-and-file it's probably a worse deal than elsewhere, but if you are mid-level and have a chance at upper mgmt role then what you make is wayyy more than what you could elsewhere, even with the CoL.




That's funny, because I happen to work for a Silicon Valley company, I'm on the same pay scale as my colleagues there, but I work from my own home on the east coast. Perhaps even more pertinently, my team-mates often express despair about being able to afford a house even on what they're making at one of (according to most sources) the top three highest-paying companies out there. So no, I don't believe that the pay scales are sufficient to achieve parity with other parts of the country in terms of what school districts they could live in elsewhere based on their skills.

Here's another way to look at it. There are a lot of people earning big money in Silicon Valley, but there are only a few thousand students at the local top-100 schools. To buy a home in one of those few towns, you need an income that's high end even by local developer standards. By contrast, not only is the cost of living lower in Illinois (for example) but the ratio of demand for their skills to demand for slots in top-100 schools also works in their favor. Those add up to a cost reduction even greater than any likely pay cut.

The only way those high Silicon Valley salaries help in terms of getting your kid into a top-100 school is if you take the money and run. Earn all that dough, save it, then use it to buy a house in another part of the country before your kids hit high school. Don't get into an auction with people who are even richer than you are.




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