Well, personally I believe it's a lot easier for East Coasters to fly to the west coast and deal with it (I mean, essentially they get wake up at 6 am but it feels like 9 am to them) than for West Coasters to fly to the east coast and back.
When you are waking up to catch the 6 am flight on the east coast back home, you need to get to the airport around 5 am. Ok, so you set your alarm for 4 am maybe. This is like 1 am to us! Then you get back to your city and it's maybe only 9 or 10 am here, and you've got your full day of work, school, etc. still ahead of you.
I am a morning person, but even I think it is easier to stay up later in the evening than to force your body to wake up at what feels like 2 am to catch the flight back home. In my experience, it's moreso drudging through the day when you get back that's hard - not staying alert on the east coast.
That said, njbmd had a good suggestion of starting to adjust prior to the trip by altering your sleep cycle a few hours. See if you can get a really comfortable pillow and noise cancelling headphones to sleep on the plane. But the best solution would be to schedule it so that you have a light day when you return from the east coast. Do your schoolwork or put in a half day of work only and then go home and crash. This might not be feasible, but it's probably the simplest thing imo.
