The job market has been exerting a lot of downward pressure on MBA salaries in recent years, especially in the wake of the financial crisis. While it's still possible for a newly minted MBA grad to make somewhere close to $140k at McKinsey, or more at an investment bank, most MBA grads are falling moderately to significantly south of that figure.

And, as others have noted, the starting salaries are highly variable -- by school, by industry, and especially by job function. When people speak of "average" MBA salaries, they're usually speaking of a mean figure and not a median -- which is a bit silly, because the mean has traditionally been skewed very heavily by investment bankers.

At the end of the day, it's somewhat intellectually lazy to compare "MBAs" to "Engineers," as if both sets are relatively homogenous, or even normally distributed. The fact is, the designation "MBA" could mean so many different things. It could mean a nonprofit manager earning $65k, a brand manager earning $80k, a consultant earning $120k, or a private equity associate earning $200k+. To a certain extent, the same can be said of the broad category "Engineer" -- although there are so many subspecies of "Engineering" masters degrees, that selecting any one of them can yield a more homogenous set to work with.

In the long run, one thing seems abundantly clear: there are perhaps more MBAs entering the job market each year than the job market will actually bear. Conversely, there is a dearth of engineering talent, and a consequent seller's market in most engineering fields. That means engineering salaries will likely trend higher, while MBA salaries trend lower.

Probably. All of my information is from a conversation I had with a newly minted Wharton MBA circa 2007.

Also with just seeing how things operate in the Valley. I haven't seen McKinsey around a lot here though...which may be a good thing. Back in the tech bust years, they seemed to have just one piece of advice for every problem: outsource to India :-)