<p>Particularly over the last decade, a great attraction of many elite Northeastern colleges has been their easy access to and strong graduate placement on Wall Street. With hiring patterns now radically reversed (Wall Street is cutting staff pretty darn fast), Wall Street jobs in all areas of finance will be harder to come by, and undoubtedly lower-paying, for newly-minted college grads. Some students may shift their efforts from the investment/commercial banks and attempt to join the hedge fund world, but as the attached link indicates, the gravy train there is also probably over. </p>
<p>Hedge Fund Manager: Goodbye and F---- You - News Blog - Daily Brief - Portfolio.com</p>
<p>Maybe this financial crisis will end up being a good thing for America and for higher education as a lot of East Coast brainpower has been going to Wall Street. Maybe now Ivy grads and other elites can get in sync with other parts of the country and turn their focus to helping America be an innovator and producer of something more substantial and longer-lasting than ephemeral Wall Street paper profits.</p>