When Ivy League business school grads are having to save until their 40s to buy homes, what does that imply for the rest of the country?
I think these are two separate issues.
> business school grads saving into their 40s to buy homes
For example, on this -- surely, if anything, manufacturing outsourcing has only made business school grads get paid more?
If you're not already familiar, take a look at Baumol's cost disease [0] for more on the phenomena at play here.
Median pay out of top b schools is ~$125-$150k. If you have a stay at home partner and a few kids, you prob need to make partner/Director before you can buy a townhouse in a Brooklyn.
That said, if you're single and work for an I Bank in Chicago, you'll be able to buy when you hit VP in your early 30s.
This is not equivalent to “buy homes” — this is like saying they wait until 40 to buy a car because the Honda Civic they drove in their 20s doesn’t count, they need a BMW.
If you are even luckier and can be a developer in those cities making 150k-200k you feel like royalty with a ton of extra money to travel often.
The other problem is that if you want to "better your life" and stop working at Amazon for $15/hr, historically you had to go somewhere where those better jobs are (often NYC/SF/LA, depending on industry). Maybe with remote work becoming more common this will change, but telling people to live in low CoL areas unless they're already making a good income puts a serious damper on social mobility.
> historically you had to go somewhere where those better jobs are
There are plenty of good paying (maybe not FAANG's 500k salary but 6 figures nonetheless) jobs in Chicago, Atlanta, North Carolina RTP, Columbus, etc. The biggest contributor to social mobility is getting a good degree at a good school. If you get any engineering degree from any decent state school - doesn't matter mechanical or computer or chemical or whatever - you're making good money.
Is it possible they have to wait due to larger than average student loans (although many do come from wealth), or that the high paying jobs they seek are in HCOL areas?