It does depend on major, though. What's interesting about this report is that it breaks it down by college and major. http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-r

It does depend on major, though. What's interesting about this report is that it breaks it down by college and major. http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2014/best-schools-by-major http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2014/best-scho... If you major in CS, your mid-career salary is generally quite high from UCs and other state universities. There's a couple issues here, though. For starters, this is heavily influence by higher salaries in California. Also, there's a survivor bias at state schools. While it is clearly harder to get into Stanford than a UC, my guess is that more students get bounced from the CS major at UCs… so this may also reflect the fact that fewer students succeed in their chosen major at those schools.