Here's the nationwide average http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Degree=Bachelor_of_Scien... .The average pay for a senior software engineer is 77-101k. Hardly the 80k norm for fresh grads that the OP is suggesting. It might be the case at Stanford(although I'd need to see statistics before I concede that) but the op's explanation for the trend mentioned in the article was a broad indictment non-cs majors rather than it being specific to the culture at stanford. Google Pays $8000 a month interns? They hire co-op students out of my school $14,000 for the entire 4 month term which comes out to about 3500 a month.
Where are the 80k$-120k$ offers coming from, geographically? The reason I ask is that 80k in S.F. is roughly... 50k in Austin, TX. 120k in S.F. is roughly equivalent to 70k in Austin. (Based on Salary.com's cost of living calculator.) 50-70k is probably a nice starting salary in Austin, but not exactly mind-blowing, imho.
Google, for example, pays $8,000 a month - just for interns!
Do you have a source for this? That seems exceedingly high. And even higher on an annual basis that the entry level salary you're mentioning.
Though I could see how paying a few extra thousands could help convince a college grad to take an internship there. Google then has their foot in the door… (but still, it would be odd to then get an offer for less than what you were making as an intern)
Also, these salary threads from the past couple of days make me feel underpaid.
I'm graduating from Stanford with a BS in CS this year and I'm interning at Google this summer, and I'm being paid less than $8000/month. I've also been told that I'm being paid a "master's intern" rate, so presumably interns who haven't completed their bachelor's are being paid less. That said, Google's intern salaries are extremely generous (just not $8000/month generous).
Also, the Stanford CS department conducts a salary survey of graduates every year, and for 2009-2010 the average salary offer for CS/EE undergrads was $79,333 and the median was $80,0000.
I do have a source for this, I saw the offer myself. I was also told that this is given to all interns, no matter what department. That being said, maybe this applied only to grad interns - maybe undergraduates get less.
Google, for example, pays $8,000 a month - just for interns!