Electrical engineering is interesting from an applied physics/mathematical standpoint. From the point of view of day-to-day work, a large segment of it has been reduced to providing a life support system for the microprocessor, which, you guessed it, runs software. Almost every EE I know is a programmer. Analog electronics, one of my early interests, has been pretty much reduced to power supply design and maybe some mixed-signal modem design. On the low end, there are advances in materials that enable Moore's law, but this is more applied physics than EE. Control theory jobs are almost nonexistent outside academia.
A lot of the higher level mathematics is cool: I personally liked dsp and stochastic systems but it got repetitive. Most CS programs offer similar math anyway. I wanted to go deeper into how the math was developed.
In short, the traditional electrical engineering field is being heavily encroached by software and the high end math isn't interesting enough. Which is why, if I had to do it all over, I would have done math, CS, physics, a lot of chem, and maybe an EE course or two. Boucher is right, it is a very difficult major, but boot camp is difficult too. I just wish it were more relevant to what is going on.
Sorry, I didn't address the 80k hopefuls. I would say that given the economic trends (ee is easier to outsource than software and is being replaced by it) that the long-term growth prospects don't look good salary wise.
The 80 k entry salaries are dubious unless they plan on using their school name to get a non-ee high paying job (read consulting, hedge fund, finance, etc). 60 is probably more realistic in my area (mid-Atlantic east coast) at the high-end entry level. In the most inflated market (the valley), seems like 100k is reasonable after 3-5 years experience (non consulting). A lot of them want advanced degrees. Of course, most of the jobs are software: http://seeker.dice.com/jobsearch/servlet/JobSearch?op=302...
