Salaries

So i noticed that starting salaries of graduates have been published. For simplicity, i will reproduce the relevant parts (sans photos) below:

Accountancy: $2,400; ($2,500 for 4 year programme)
Applied Science: $,2,500; ($2,600 for 4 year programme with Honours)
Arts: $2,500; ($2,700-$2,900 for 4 year programme with Honours)
Business Administration: $2,600; ($2,900 for 4 year programme with Honours)
Communication Studies: $2,600 (4 year programme with Honours)
Computing: $2,800; ($2,900 for 4 year programme with Honours)
Dental Surgery: $3,000 (4 year programme with Honours)
Education: $3,000 (4 year programme)
Engineering: $3,000 (4 year programme in Aerospace, Chemical & Biomolecular, or Industrial & Systems )
Engineering: $2,800-$2,900 (4 year programme in Bioengineering, Mechanical, Materials, Computer, Electrical and Electronics)
Engineering: $2,600 to $2,700 (4 year programme in Civil, Environmental)
Fine Arts: $2,300 (4 year programme in Art, Design and Media)
Science: $2,500; ($2,600 for 4 year programme in Maritime Studies, Real Estate or Nursing)
Science: $2,750-$2,950 (4 year programme in Biological, Mathematics, Chemistry & Biological Chemistry or Information Systems Management)
Economics: $3,000 (4 year programme)

NB: all three year programmes unless specified.

So for the extra one year of your life and extra tuition fees, you get $100-300 a month. Fair deal? Many times, employers stress on the need for job experience, and would happily neglect the extra education a candidate has. Excuses that i have heard range from: irrelevant field, too high level to be practical, too academically minded (whatever that means). But at the same time, they fail to recognise that the extra education has also provided more maturity of thought and (sometimes) an ability to provide out-of-the-box solutions. To trade off, I suggest that employers treat the time spent on extra education as job experience and pay their people as such.

Also, i noticed that the starting pay for the legal profession is not listed, which is a pity because i would have like to see how much lawyers get when they first begin. Anyways, my own self-interest would be in salaries of people mid career. =)

In the same breath, i also read about this couple who own two cars but take public transport on the weekends. As civil servants, they earn $9k each? Wow. They work in Serangoon and Ang Mo Kio, but

To avoid having to ferry each other to their individual workplaces and risk
reaching work late, the couple decided to get a second car.

Which is really a waste of money to me since Serangoon and AMK aren't far apart to me, but then again, i don't earn $9k a month. =)