Number 2 could be a positive spin on not wanting to pay employees more.
Years ago, when I lived in the upper Midwest, I had fellow manager tell me he liked to hire engineers that grew up on dairy farms. "They know that they have to show up every day. They know that a certain amount of st comes along with every job, even great ones, so you might as well just spend a few minutes with a shovel and get it out of the way. They know the work doesn't get done by somebody else if they don't do it."
As a manager I've had the experience myself of convincing kids from fancy schools that, yes, I really do expect them to contribute to the less fun assignments, too. Only once did that not have a good outcome -- but that guy had other issues, too.
My starting salary in 1994 was (converting to USD), $18,000 by 2001 I was earning $84,000 (my last salary in the UK)
Starting salary doesn’t have to be a limitation, it is an uphill climb, but it’s not on your “permanent record”
Lots of people I've talked to at my school don't believe software engineers can make $160k-$200k TC out of undergrad.
It's the same as buying anything brand name, you're paying for the (presumed) higher probability of higher quality or reduced chance of failure.
Transparency of salaries would be a boon to the general public, but we have such a huge social stigma against discussing pay, that employers can take advantage of this, however that's not the employer's fault.