The $42k quant course for the $325k hedge fund jobs
If you aspire to be a quant, you should be aware of the Baruch Masters in Financial Engineering (MFE). As we've noted often, the Baruch course is low-priced (fees are $29k for New York state residents and $42k for everyone else, including international students), and can result in some of the highest paying quant jobs in financial services.
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How high paying? Last time we looked, which was December 2023, some Baruch graduates were earning $1m. This is still the case, although it has never been the norm. In the first year post-graduation, median pay for Baruch graduates is $225k. Five years after graduation, the median now ranges from around $130k to $325k, depending upon your role.
The chart below is based on Baruch's newly released employment report for its MFE students five years after graduating. The figures aren't exact but are based upon our approximate readings of Baruch's bar charts.
As the charts show, you can still earn $1m five years out of Baruch's MFE, but you will need to choose your seat carefully. People earning seven figures are typically working as quant researchers in hedge funds. If you work in asset management, or in product development and machine learning, you will earn a lot less.
Baruch's report suggests that its graduates are mostly highly satisfied with the lives and their pay and that there's not really much point in doing a PhD, given that median pay for the few Baruch MFEs who also have a PhD is only $300k.
It also suggests, however, that pay for MFE graduates in some areas may have passed its peak. In 2022, Baruch MFE students who graduated in 2017 were earning a median of $700k in high frequency trading roles. This year, that looks closer to $650k instead.
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