[vineyardmike]

> Listen to what these post graduate students want - for those who are moving a city like NYC or Boston

I totally agree with everything you’re saying and listed but let’s not pretend the biggest item is anything but “higher salary” for most. We all know that some of these major metros have companies that pay 5-10x what you’d get in a small midwestern town.

Anecdotally, I did an internship in Cleveland followed by an internship in Santa Clara (Silicon Valley). I got job offers from both and chose California. The Cleveland company was a major donor to me school, so I got hounded by the schools career development office about why I chose to go to Santa Clara instead. They asked what the company could do to be more attractive to me - they mentioned intern ice cream parties, and Friday hours worked, and mentor programs, etc. The intern pay was $18/hr vs $80/hr, and when I brought it up, that was not a good answer - they wanted something cheaper easier and more superficial to change.

My point is that NYC and Boston have nothing to worry about, and nothing will change.

[naniwaduni]

Hey, now, cut all the hours off every day other than Friday and then a 78% pay cut starts looking okay.

[leetcrew]

> I totally agree with everything you’re saying and listed but let’s not pretend the biggest item is anything but “higher salary” for most. We all know that some of these major metros have companies that pay 5-10x what you’d get in a small midwestern town.

there's a lot of places in between "random midwestern town" and NYC that handily beat both on wages to COL ratio. even just looking at other major east coast cities like DC, atlanta, or boston, NYC is far more expensive and typical engineer pay is only a little higher.