<p>Wall Street may be in turmoil, but to say “the job market will open up” is naive. Wall Street has always been elitist, long before employee income levels went through the roof. The nature of that elitism has changed (from a New England based upper class, elite due to social connections to an elitism based on educational pedigree over a period of about 40 years, among other changes), but its existence has not. </p>
<p>What may change is the structure of the players, and the employment base. We’ll probably see a return of a sharper dividing line between those that play with public money (i.e. have access to treasury funds, deposit guarantees or are publicly traded) versus the private folks. Heck, even the latest bailout proposal relies on private equity (where do you suppose the name came from?). And it is tough legally to cap their incomes, especially since they structure so much of it as a carried interest.</p>
<p>In the next few years, we are likely to see greatly heightened competition for the wall street jobs that can lead to great wealth. This is likely to increase the value of the “right” degrees. It will not open doors for the UMD graduates for these “new wall street” type jobs. The UMD grads will of course be able to compete for and get run of the mill back office jobs, such as accounting. They’re also likely to be working in NJ, not NYC.</p>