Once they stood to inherit the world, or at least a tidy little corner of it. Now, staring into the abyss of the worst financial crisis in decades, California's MBA students are tempering their expectations, networking like crazy and looking for a Plan B or even C.
"People come to business school to shoot for the stars," said Bangaly Kaba, 29, a second-year student at USC Marshall School of Business. "At some point, you have to look at what's in front of you because the stars aren't available."
Graduates of the top 25 schools such as the Marshall School, UCLA Anderson School of Management and Stanford Graduate School of Business are typically all but guaranteed six-figure incomes that justify the $100,000 and even $200,000 in student loans they carry. Stanford reported that three months out of school, 92% of last year's graduates had accepted jobs with a median salary of $125,000, signing bonuses of $20,000 and other compensation of $45,000.
But now, some investment houses where students had hoped to turn summer internships into jobs are dead, companies are cutting back campus recruiting trips, and the job market is swarming with laid-off Wall Street employees, business school officials said.
Kaba was well on his way to MBA nirvana as a summer associate this year at Lehman Bros. in New York City. The venerable financial firm shut down days after his job ended.
"It was a huge job to get, with one of the top investment banks in the world," said Kaba, a second-year student at the Marshall School. "There was a 1% chance of getting that job. . . . It was not even fathomable the company could go bankrupt."
Kaba is not discouraged, however. A former inner-city teacher in Washington, D.C., and onetime dean of an international boarding school in Switzerland, he said he was enjoying the ride.
"The West Coast is a great place to be, the lifestyle, the way the school is run. Everything is a lot more chill," he said.
Incidentally, Kaba said the side benefits of investment banking -- the Porsche, penthouse and wine locker -- have been greatly exaggerated. Over the summer, he worked 13-hour days while sharing a Manhattan apartment that "was not that big or nice."
Now, he has several meetings with prospective employers in New York City, and although one is informational, he remains optimistic about finding work.
