Cost of living factor in busines school salaries?

Hey guys,

I have a question around rankings and their methodologies.

Do any of them account for regional cost of living differences in their graduates salaries? I feel like this could be a factor for keeping the ranking lower for schools that are located in lower cost of living locations, and as such, place people in that same location which require a lower salary to be competitive.

Example:
Columbia Business School (NYC) starting salary: $116,153 (No stats about post employment location I could find, but I Assume a large majority of students stay in NYC after graduation)
Rice Jones School of Management (Houston, TX) starting salary: $101,229 (91% of graduates work in the "Southwest", which tends to have a lower cost of living)
Salary data source: 2013 Business week ranking

And based on the NY Times cost of living calculator using a NYC base salary of $116,153:
"The cost of living in Houston, TX is 53.2% lower than in New York, NY . Therefore, you would have to earn a salary of $54,382 to maintain your current standard of living."
https://nytimes.salary.com/CostOfLivingW ... esult.aspx

You have almost double the standard of living upon graduation from Rice and working in Houston, than graduating from Columbia and living in NYC. Even over the course of a career, I feel the net improvement of your standard is a much more important factor than pure $$$. Granted starting salary is just one component of a ranking and the overall B-school experience, and some may define standard of living differently, but salary seems to be a major factor for many applicants and its something I wanted to see others thoughts on.

DISCLAIMER: I applied to both Rice and Columbia which is why I used them as an example. While I don't have to use this in my decision process, I thought some discussion on this point could help others that may face a similar decision.

Edit: I added the link to the NY Times COL calc.