Could you specify in what you are getting your degree in? If you are getting your PhD in biology or chemistry, you can easily work for a pharmaceutical company, where the starting salary is ~90-100K. Chemist could also work for a chemical company. If your focus in materials science or engineering, you could apply in companies like Intel, IBM etc with aforementioned salary ranges. Other options are working for national labs, where starting salaries are around ~70K.

From my understanding, research oriented universities do give comparable salaries to industries.

Once you had your PhD, you can always apply for GC in EB1 category.  It does not have to be company sponsored if you have a good number of publications.

If you are planning to be a pharmacist and working in retail may fetch you a handsome salary, but your job could be monotonous.