Yahoo Finance MBAs abandon Wall Street for Silicon Valley
Business students are flocking from Wall Street to Silicon Valley and graduate programs are doing all they can to keep up.
For many years, a Wall Street-driven career was the obvious goal of most MBA candidates: Two-years at an elite school followed by a lucrative stint as an investment banker or consultant. The 2008 financial crisis and the explosion of tech-based entrepreneurialism, however, have reshaped those dreams.
While business schools scramble to cater to this new wave of tech-minded corporate leaders, they're feeling the pinch. In 2013, applications to business schools fell by 1% while applications to graduate programs in computer science and mathematics grew by 11%, according to the Council of Graduate Schools.
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Cornell is now offering a one-year tech focused MBA program that is currently based out of Google's (GOOG) New York Headquarters. Harvard Business School and Columbia Business School also offer incubator programs to entrepreneurial MBA candidates that dole out funding, advice from experts and opportunities to present ideas to venture capitalists.
Geoffrey Garrett, Dean of The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania, says that he sees a clear change in MBA post-graduate ambitions. Undergraduate business students are still heavily recruited by Wall Street and consulting firms, he says, but for graduate students, "it's much broader with a lot more emphasis on start ups and innovation in Silicon Valley and Southern California."
In 2013, 18% of job-seeking Harvard Business School graduates took tech jobs, up from 12% the previous year. At the same time, 27% of grads took jobs on Wall Street, down from 35% in 2012.
When it comes to tech companies, says Garrett, "We see the front end which is the app, but typically we don't see what's sitting behind that which is a lot of data analytics and I really think that's Wharton's sweet spot."
It could be. In 2013, Amazon.com (AMZN) hired 40% more MBAs than it did in 2012. Clearly there's benefit being added to both sides of the equation.
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