Might not have been true, but has definitely been the narrative pedalled to young people for years.

There is always some career that kids get pushed into with a promise of “jobs in demand” and “guaranteed salary”.

In the late 1990s our MSCE graduates were starting at $70K which is easily in six figure territory today when adjusted for inflation.

Six figures is far from what it used to be.

In mid to large cities in the US it was and still is depending on the situation. Historically, during hype cycles in tech, starting salaries can be crazy. Mostly at the FAANG companies, but even smaller companies would do this sometimes too.

During Covid, my spouse knew a guy who got hired right out of college, didn't even complete his 4 year cyber security degree. Starting salary was 95K, with zero experience, and this was a mid-sized city.

And even if you weren't getting six figures right out of college, you could land a job still making 65-85K starting as a junior dev, and within 18-24 months, jump ship or get promoted and be making 100K+

Also remember that depending on the city, 100K salary isn't "that much" money, and places that are typical tech hubs in the US (San Francisco, Seattle, NYC) are also some of the most expensive places to live in the country, and often literally in the world.

Tech pay is wild in the USA because of the Silicon Valley culture and the massive government subsidies that the industry has gotten for decades to artificially pump its growth.

This is one of the reasons why tech workers have made almost no progress getting unionized, it's a deliberate tactic by the industry. Pay super high salaries, sprinkle in some healthy American Individualist propaganda, and most people won't have any incentive to unionize, they can always get a job that pays well to very well.

That's finally starting to change, as enshitification takes over and tech companies begin to treat tech workers just as shittily as other kinds of workers. This AI bubble has already resulted in a ton of layoffs in the tech sector, when it finally pops, it will be absolutely devastating. Painful for millions, but probably will be the catalyst for a real unionization effort, and not just of tech workers, but workers in general.

Additionally, just “knowing how to code” has never been an actual ticket to success.

Software engineers are hired to solve problems, not write code. If you can write code but can’t solve problems and create innovative solutions you’re no better than a monkey.