I made $21.45 in my first job out of college, working the 2nd shift at Applied Materials outside of Austin, in 2001. I thought it was good money back then. So I guess that would have been $44.6K per year. This was right before 9/11 and the very beginning of the internet bubble, so things got slow fast and I ended up leaving before getting laid off. Plus, I was looking to return to my home area.
I graduated debt free, with help from my parents and working part time, from A&M in 2001. I drove old vehicles, lived in cheap apartments, and in general lived as cheap as I could.