I see completely opposite. I have been in this field for long, big and boring companies such as GE, Siemens, J&J, Abbott Laboratories, Philips offer much much higher than 40K for Biomed Engeering undergrads. I worked a stint at several of them, hired many.
I am now with a small but fast paced shop based off of Toronto, and there is a network of similar shops that I partner with. I think I am in a good position to tell you that the hiring is competitive so is salary. 40K? you made my grin, buddy.
Another fact is there are many Bioengeering jobs won't appear with "bioengeering" used as the search keyword.
They will show as "medical imaging and machine learning specialist", "computational biologists", "bioinfomaticians / neroinfomaticians", "scientific programmers", "associated / laboratory scientist", "assay development engineer". I can keep this list going.
is far broader than just developing medical devices. This profession is the application of both biological and engineering principles to medicine. This certainly involves the research and development of devices (CT, MEG, EEG, MRI), and materials (e.g. biomarker, antibodies) but it also focuses on a much wider ranger of scientific areas, such as, software and algorithm (e.g., the software can detect and remove human skull from a MRI image), drug discovery, cognitive simulation, prosthetic limbs & artificial organs, tissue engineering, medical robotics, brain surgery (e.g. tissue spectrum analysis) etc.
This is an excellent career / academic path, promising, challenging, and cutting-edge therefore, of course, competitive. Ontario is a tech hub for Biomed Eng., many start-ups are right in this arena and starving for young talents.