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Comment by turing | Hacker News Reader

I was actually discussing this with a fellow Yale student over dinner tonight. We both came to the same, largely negative, conclusion as the professors interviewed in the article: "it’s an unproductive use of Yalies’ time."

These students are given opportunities most people only dream of. We are exposed to leaders in our fields every day. We are blessed with a $20 billion endowment that enables nearly anything we can envision. Many of us receive tens, hundreds of thousands of dollars in financial aid. The fact that so many choose to go on to careers that do so little to give back is, in my opinion, shameful.

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Yuck. I know you meant that with the best intentions but your comment came out really snobby.

Are finance and consulting valuable fields or should they just be abolished altogether? Given how some of these people are paid, one can at least say that it is valuable from a monetary point of view. If these fields are indeed valuable, then who should fill the positions if not Yalies? Should state school students fill those roles because it is not beneath them to make a lot of money?

A field is either worthy or unworthy of a person's time. There's no need to say it's unworthy of a Yalie's time. To say that and then follow it with how blessed and lucky you are, makes people think you think Yalies should aspire to some higher standard that others don't have to. It's kind of arrogant.

At the end of the day, even Yalies have to eat and satisfy their material needs. It's silly to think that they're somehow immune to the desires most humans have. The Yale admission process doesn't filter out applicants based on that. It does optimize for high achievement and ambition. Given that, why would anyone really expect Yalies to avoid careers that are financially rewarding and, until recently, quite prestigious?

-Yale Alum in tech

I am not implying that there is a standard for Yalies that doesn't apply to others. I am saying that there is a standard that all of us should aspire to, and that the good fortune that Yalies have been blessed with better positions us to reach it.

When it comes down to it, there is more to assessing a position's value than the income figures on your tax returns. There are the products you produced, the innovations you fostered, the lives you bettered, and the individuals you saved. Not everyone is in a position, socially or financially, to effect such outcomes in their professional lives. Yalies, because of a mix of hard work, luck, and the outstanding generosity of others, are better positioned to make these positive contributions to society than almost anyone in the world. The fact that so many choose such a singularly self-interested path, one whose value is tied solely to the money they earn for themselves, is what upsets me.

Very well put. Jumping into a finance/consulting job for the money and living out your life is the career equivalent of cranking out jingos for commercials or kitsch art reproductions. We're human beings, we're meant to follow our passions. If someone is genuinely interested in optimizing processes or structuring finances, great! But it's a disservice to your soul to jump in for the money alone.

I realize this is a "luxury" mentality (I'm actually the son of immigrants from a poor background so I get this) but life is about more. "I study physics and engineering so my children can study literature and philosophy" is a famous quote along these lines (can't remember). Funny enough, I enjoy math/physics for its own sake. But mindlessly pressuring/inciting people to be doctors/consultants/financial analysts is doing them a disservice in the long run.

And for what it's worth, I think the revenue created by the finance industry far exceeds its value. Saying "the industry must be valuable because it makes money" doesn't sway me. The rubber dog crap industry is probably millions but it's not helping people.

Maybe Yale should use that endowment to pay people to give back to society? In the end, people don't become bankers or consultants because they are looking for the easiest way to be a drain on society. They do it because society gives them a lot of money for doing it, and they have to pay off their $100,000 student loans and raise a family.

They do in many ways, at least indirectly.

One possible outlet we discussed for encouraging students to forgo careers in banking and consulting was financial aid. Suppose Yale instituted a policy that accepting financial aid required an agreement to forgo consulting and banking positions for at least 2 years after graduation. This would decrease the number of students who choose such careers "just because." Other students who intend to go into such careers would surely be drawn away to other fields during the waiting period. Of course, those who do not qualify for financial aid, and those who can afford to deny the aid they are offered, would not be affected by such a measure. This would warrant a consideration of whether the class divide on post-graduation freedom is undesirable. Then again, I don't think it would be unreasonable for Yale to say: "We are offering you the opportunity of a lifetime, an education at an amazing school you would otherwise not be able to afford. The only condition is that you must do something productive with it."

There's also the possibility of positive reinforcement as opposed to the negative scenarios outlined above. What if Yale offered additional financial aid to those who agreed to teach/do research/pursue charitable work for two years after graduation?

Yale's endowment money is indirectly invested in some nontrivial amount of startups you see headlining tech blogs.

> "and they have to pay off their $100,000 student loans and raise a family."

With credit to Thank You For Smoking - that's the Yuppie Nuremberg Defense. Not saying that consulting/finance is like being a merchant of death, but it's really a poor justification for most things, and my eyelids twitch every time I hear it used.

What do you expect? There is no such thing as "secure job" anymore so the only way to secure your lifestyle is to make as much money as possible.

I would love to make things that benefit everyone and give them away for free but there's no way I'm going to do that while my family needs my productive hours to generate income.

By the sound of the endowment numbers, they've found a pretty good way to give back

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