Appreciate the concrete math, it helps ground the abstraction of living expenses.
The missing piece here is the salary inflation over a very short period of time.
As a Stanford engineer, one should use the leapfrog technique (stay at a job no more than 18mo) to increase your salary by 2x in 5 years. That would mean by 27-years-old, this person should be in the $250k range, 35% tax = $160k usable, $15k 401k = $12k/mo.
YMMV, but this is should be entirely doable by the median Stanford grad.
The missing piece here is the salary inflation over a very short period of time.
As a Stanford engineer, one should use the leapfrog technique (stay at a job no more than 18mo) to increase your salary by 2x in 5 years. That would mean by 27-years-old, this person should be in the $250k range, 35% tax = $160k usable, $15k 401k = $12k/mo.
YMMV, but this is should be entirely doable by the median Stanford grad.