I think one thing is that people factor the college they went to in terms of the jobs they are seeking (not just in terms of pay, but also prestige of the compa

I think one thing is that people factor the college they went to in terms of the jobs they are seeking (not just in terms of pay, but also prestige of the company they are looking at, flexibility with moving, etc.), that may not matter as much at the high-end of the pay range or after years of experience, but I think right out of college this is important. My argument is basically the low-end of the jobs that someone who went to Princeton and excelled in computer science is willing to settle for is higher than the low-end of jobs that someone who went to a lesser-name school and excelled in computer science is willing to settle for. In theory, if the difference in quality of education is enough, then the level of education that someone who excelled in computer science at Princeton vs someone who excelled in computer science at a lesser-name college would equal out this difference in expectations, but I don't think that is the case, at least when we are talking about high-end school vs mid-range school. Moreover, in computer science especially there is a lot of self-learning. Someone who has done consistently better than their peers probably has a good talent for self-learning, even if the average of their peers is lower. I think you get the same discount for quality when hiring weird people or people with odd job histories. My general idea here is that if someone is less desirable in a way which you do not care about but where other companies might care about, they are probably going to be on average of higher quality than someone more conventionally desirable asking for the same salary range. Not saying this is an iron law, but I think it is a tendency.