From the same report. Finance has median 150k base pay, median 40k signing bonus, median 100k other guaranteed income. Tech has 125k, 20k, and 20k. Sounds less likely that they're making some informed decision on the future of Tech, and more likely that they're going where the money is at the moment. Those numbers are very different.
Actually, that hasn't changed in the last year. A more significant fact is that in 2012 24% of MBAs went to tech, in 2013, 32%, and now in 2014 it's back down. There weren't any huge shifts in the industry in the last two years, so the data seems inherently noisy, determined by the acts of 20 people who go either to one or the other.
Yes, excluding outliers, finance has always paid better. I'd guess the brief migration from finance to tech was simply because finance became very unfashionable for a little while. Meanwhile, headline-grabbing IPOs were making it seem like everyone in Silicon Valley was making easy money.
I have a strong conviction that out of all the professional postgraduate degrees out there, a MBA is the most "rational" for people to obtain for financial and professional progress purposes. Thus the cohort it attracts are hyperrational people (which is partly why I think "most" -- not all -- MBA graduates are ill-suited for starting companies, since a startup is a highly irrational affair from a financial perspective), and thus their decision making will be rational. It just makes sense to pursue a career in finance. After all, it is by far the most lucrative path on average.
Also, I can't shake the suspicion that the output results from the program are affected significantly by the inputs (the students accepted by admissions), and the effect of the relative cyclical attractiveness of the industries must thus be attenuated significantly.
Actually, that hasn't changed in the last year. A more significant fact is that in 2012 24% of MBAs went to tech, in 2013, 32%, and now in 2014 it's back down. There weren't any huge shifts in the industry in the last two years, so the data seems inherently noisy, determined by the acts of 20 people who go either to one or the other.
Poor article. Looking for a story.