Dude. A lot of money for someone who cant do anything without using a computer? Yeah find me village educated architect or an areo engineer that works without a computer and I will put his head into an oven. Seriously are you a troll? I cant think of an engineer that should design stuff without a computer.That's an awful lot of money for someone who can't do anything without using a computer.
I think you're not looking hard enough for talent. I know a lot of people who find 60k a lot of money and would be happy to work for less.
But if you limit your search to major US metro areas where inflation is king and greed is the queen, and everyone expects their starting salary to enable them to buy a Beemer and live in a McMansion, of course you will have to pay 70k. Of course.
And people say the bike industry isn't about getting rich. 70k is a lot of scratch, dude. And if you think it's not, your perspective is ****ed.
Also - supply and demand. The supply of qualified engineers is thin as ****. Even in east yurp which supposedly is a great place to import them from.
btw. the base enginering salary in poland for a designer not a student is 36k up and our living cost and average salaries are more than half of the us.
As for your easy engineering comment - 1st year? pfff. Doing the ib program makes you auto pass(ie. you dont have to pass them, some unis just assume you dont need to redo it) a large chunk of the subjects that is how serious first year is