That is true. Good engineers will always rise above the bad ones, regardless of what background they have. But we are talking about starting salaries here.

I understand that. And it's true that it is best to negotiate the highest starting salary as possible because most people, on average, will get a standard "cost of living" (whatever that means anymore) raise increase on an annual basis. But, I wanted to point out that there is definitely hope for non-namebrand CS program graduates, too.