I didn't read all the responses, just skimmed them.
First of all, doing well in school and doing well in life aren't really as related as they seem, I think. Clearly you know this from the fact that he didn't seem to work nearly as hard as you, but finds himself with a similar job post college. Some of the smartest people I know just were not subservient enough to fall in line during school years.
I say you hang onto your job for a bit and do the long distance thing as long as you can. If his work is saying move or lose it, I wouldn't hold my breath that this is a lifetime career organization. Work on your career and you can both seek out opportunities in a place you both want to be. The salary will be great leverage for future positions. I've moved from a HCOL area to a lower COL area, and just told the recruiters what it was I was making. I expected to need to take a drop, but the reality is there is a big range of salaries for most types of positions, and setting the bar high is a good thing for negotiations. I've been in senior accounting positions ranging from 50K to 92K in my career. Once I left the HCOL area at 75K ish, there was no way a recruiter would consider showing me a job at 60K.
