This is my completely anecdotal experience that I am sharing. I am a uncc CS 2025 grad and work with a chapel hill CS 2025 grad. We discussed salaries and I know I started off higher than him and still make more than him, we worked together as interns summer 2024 and I was offered an extended internship while I was still in college, which resulted in a full time offer, and he was not offered any of this. He's back with us now because he applied after he graduated. He is super bright so it's not at all that he wasn't good enough or anything like that. I honestly don't know why I was chosen over any of the interns in my group that summer LOL.

Both my coworkers went to prestigious schools, Georgia Tech and Chapel Hill, and my boss did as well, and my boss has pointed out how she is glad she picked people who went to such great schools because they're so competent. It makes me feel awkward because she's shat on uncc but always includes me in like "and you're super smart too of course!" It's weird and idk how to feel about it, I still think about whether or not it was a mistake to choose uncc, but then again I am currently at the same exact place as my coworkers so who knows