Harvard & Wall St.: A Love Affair Ended

Many of those finance types turned away by Harvard in 2011, by the way, went to Wharton which reported significantly larger numbers of incoming students with financial backgrounds. In fact, Wharton increased its finance intake to 42% from 37% the previous year–up five full percentage points. At a time when Harvard appeared to consciously reshape its incoming class to include greater numbers of young professionals from such industries as manufacturing, technology, consumer products and non-profits, Wharton boosted its intake of mainstream MBA candidates from the fields of consulting and investment banking (see Wharton Ups Finance & Consulting Admits). So watch for Wharton salaries this year to go up this year.

MORE HARVARD MBAS ARE NOW WORKING IN CONSULTING, TECHNOLOGY AND CONSUMER PRODUCTS

The shift away from finance–which resulted in a $5,000 fall in median starting salaries this year to $120,000–has meant that more MBAs are working in consulting, technology, consumer products and even non-profit and government jobs–all of which pay MBAs less money to start. Some 18% of this year’s class went into the technology industry, up from just 12% in 2012, while 7% went into the consumer products industry, up from a mere 3% last year, and 5% took jobs in the non-profit or government sectors, up from 3% in 2012.

Those industries tend to pay less than either consulting or financial services. The median starting salary in the technology sector, for example, was $115,000–$10,000 less than financial services and $20,000 less than consulting. The median base salary in consumer products was $100,000–$25,000 below financial services and $35,000 below consulting.

Yet, those base salary numbers only tell a very small part of the story. In the financial sector particularly, some of the greatest rewards come in signing bonuses and “other guarantee compensation” made to freshly minted MBAs. For Harvard grads who landed jobs in private equity and LBO firms this year, the total first-year compensation package could be as high as $311,000. In consulting, the comparative number is just $188,500; in technology, it’s $155,250; in consumer products, just $125,000, and in non-profit or government jobs, it’s a mere $90,000 (see tables below).