The Ivy League Churn

“Oh, you know the path,” a Princeton student recently told me at a recruiting event, “you go to an Ivy League school. Then you either become an investment banker or a management consultant. After two-three years, you apply to law school or b-school. And if you fall off the path for even one year, you can’t get back on.”

The best universities in the world are turning many graduates into krill for too-big-to-fail corporate leviathans. Since they’re well-paid krill, no one complains, but when more than a third of a graduating class disappears each year into the gaping maw of financial services, it begs the question whether Ivy League schools are teaching critical thinking after all.

In Forbes, Michael Gibson writes about “the path” a majority of Ivy League graduates take into the industries of finance and consulting, and why it might be problematic: Too many smart, talented people heading to places like Goldman Sachs after college and not to, well, the rest of the labor market looking for smart, talented individuals not heading into the financial services industry. Well, it’s a good thing smart individuals also exist at non-Ivy League Schools who have decided not to take this path!

Photo: Helico

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