| maximizing salary is exactly what the study looked it. the approximation of finance = top salary is less accurate than the data they used. i'm not sure that's true either. remember the study is comparing people who could have entered an ivy but didn't with people who did get into an ivy. since state schools admit more people with lower rankings who's to say that the smooth entry in high finance is due to the degree? it could be the ability of the person who got accepted to the ivy that makes the difference. it may be more difficult at first, but an terrible ivy educated quant isn't gonna stick around very long. and a good state school educated quant may take longer to get in but eventually get there anyways. which is what the study actually suggests. this is odd in finance since the real measure of someone in that field is revenue generated. no one cares you went to podunk state if you outperform everyone else. i know someone who's absolutely brilliant with a math phd from a state school that is working as a quant now. now that he's in his career is gonna be determined by revenue generated, not the degree on his wall. you can't really control for a financial job salary either. they're heavily based on bonuses and hence performance of the trader. if they are making bank it's likely related to the natural ability that got him into the ivy in the first place. which is the same level as those people who went to a state school that were followed in the study. like most fields, the people at the top of finance make disproportionately more than those in the trenches, who are not rich by any reasonable definition. if you worm your way up in a traditional company/create a successful product the same imbalance in pay exists. but for finance, we judge salaries based on the top performers, where as for engineers we tend to think of the average. |