Money is only a symptom. What it's really about is the vestiges of the old British class system. Doctors, lawyers, bankers, managers, and so on are upper-middle-class professionals. Engineers of any sort, no matter how skilled, no matter how many degrees, PE or CEng status, have the taint of blue-collar about them (from the POV of the upper-middles). A manager will never be happy to see a worker paid more than him, even if by the laws of supply and demand they ought to be.

This is much much less of a problem in say Germany where Engineer is a respected, prestigious title in its own right.

This is the right starting point for any serious discussion of the "engineer shortage." Instead of expounding on how wonderful the unfilled engineering jobs are, we need to know how they stack up against other professions.

If someone is capable of getting into a (top or even middle tier) MS or PhD program in engineering, it means they are 1) capable of working extremely hard in an academic environment with highly rigorous subject matter, and 2) able to score high on standardized tests. This is the same skill set required for law or med school.

So how are the grads of the top engineering MS/PhD programs doing compared to law or medicine? Unless it's competitive, we can end the analysis right there (and a recent RAND study concluded that this lack of competitiveness with other options was, in fact, driving the low interest level of Americans in engineering).

By the way, I actually do think there are some good reasons to pursue an engineering or science path. Your opportunity to contribute to the general welfare is immense in engineering. You may be intensely satisfied with the work, or craftsmanship involved. You may find yourself at home in the immensely logical world, and there are actually many opportunities to work with people and improve their lives, in spite of the "loner" image engineers often have.

But this is the discussion we need to have, one based on an honest assessment of the rewards of engineering relative to other paths available to people with high levels of talent and academic ability.