Consider the predicament of today's aspiring member of the white collar leisure class: all of the old ways of doing things seem to be falling apart. Law school, once the fallback of choice for lightly-motivated college educated upper middle class twentysomethings who weren't ready to face The Real World after graduation, is no longer a safe bet at all. Well, how about business school? No, no, no.
The WSJ reports that M.B.A. graduates—who may have been laboring under the misapprehension that they had made a superior choice to all those suckers in law school—are staring at a chart that is trending the wrong way. At least they presumably have the skills necessary to interpret it correctly.
For [newly hired M.B.A. grads] with minimal experience-three years or less-median pay was $53,900 in 2012, down 4.6% from 2007-08, according to an analysis conducted for The Wall Street Journal by PayScale.com. Pay fell at 62% of the 186 schools examined.
Even for more seasoned grads the trend is similar
The majority of M.B.A. graduates also come out of school in debt. The WSJ implies (but does not explicitly state) that the value of the degree has been watered down by the great expansion in the number of graduates over the past decade, and, perhaps, by the fact that their undergraduate recruiting pool is perceived as kind of dumb.
Where, oh where, is that calm, idealized, white collar lifestyle to be found, then? Christ, every state university frat boy can't grow up to become a dentist. There just aren't enough teeth in the world. If the dream of becoming even a middle manager is now distant, what hope is there for anyone? Must all the young people who aspire to nothing more than a mid-grade Mercedes and a modest home on a golf course spend the rest of their days gazing jealously at those who were lucky enough to become law firm partners before the bottom fell out of this whole hustle?
Eh, those law firm partners are getting laid off too. If it makes you feel any better.
[Photo: Shutterstock]