Gen Z is often hailed as the most optimistic generation yet. Gen Z will be the one to solve the complex mess of problems they inherited from their elders. Gen Z will be the one to save the planet, speak out against injustice, and change the system for good. Undoubtedly, many Gen Z’ers possess a quality that older generations admire: care and passion for the world and a deep understanding of global issues.
When we take a closer look at the United States’ top universities, however, a different story unfolds. Students may have entered their freshman year with the goal of using their education for good, equipped with an impressive high-school resume of social-impact initiatives and environmental clubs. However, by sophomore year, many become disillusioned, even pessimistic, about the prospect of creating positive change with their career. Students start to believe they have no agency and no means to create change in a system that fails to validate their efforts. Instead, they turn to more practical considerations when choosing their career path: financial security and stability. Today, a significant proportion of students graduating from top universities enter what some call the Bermuda Triangle of Talent, which encompasses consulting, corporate law, and finance. This turn towards more lucrative industries reflects not individual greed but a deeper economic system that rewards value extraction over social contribution.
The 2024 graduating class saw 50 percent of Harvard graduates enter the corporate fields of consulting, finance, or Big Tech. In the 1970s, this figure was just five percent. Even Brown—despite having a student body traditionally stereotyped as values driven and idealistic—has turned preprofessional. In 2021, 51 percent of graduates entered the identical three fields: finance, consulting, and tech. In the last two years, the influx of students to consulting clubs and finance clubs on campus has skyrocketed. The Collegiate Consulting Group, for instance, has seen the number of applications jump from 180 to 300 this year.
Top consulting firms such as McKinsey, Bain, and BCG and investment banks such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan have entrenched themselves in the Ivy League campus and other elite institutions. Recruiting begins as early as sophomore year, which frames finance and consulting as default “prestige paths.” Talented graduates—who could address climate change, design a more equitable healthcare system, tackle income inequality, and solve global hunger—are instead deployed to create PowerPoint decks, facilitate corporate mergers, and optimize profit margins, outcomes that ultimately make little difference in the world. Where is the same type of recruiting for students who want to change the world?
If asked to pinpoint the magnetism of these industries, most would immediately default to the monetary appeal. Money is rarely the full picture, however. The pursuit of wealth is often not a pursuit of money itself but a pursuit of what money can bring: freedom, prestige, safety, and stability. Stability, in particular, is something the younger generation is bound to seek in an increasingly uncertain world, especially as artificial intelligence fundamentally changes the job market.
The unpredictability of American politics in 2025 has made this perceived lack of control much worse. Since the Trump administration took office, mass layoffs have limited job opportunities in areas typically considered generators of social change, including the public sector, research, and non-profit organizations. Organizations like the Environmental Protection Agency have laid off thousands of workers and non-profit organizations across the country are experiencing federal funding freezes. Morale has taken a hit; students see these jobs as inaccessible and no longer impactful. The tragedy, then, is not that Gen Z has lost their idealism and resorted to personal gain, but rather that they have realized that socially useful work is a privilege: a luxury for those who can afford to forgo the security, prestige, and validation that the corporate pipeline provides.
A shame, to say the least, considering the other ways in which students could be contributing to society. That is not to say that corporate jobs do not provide any value to society. They certainly do: There is evidence that a sophisticated and well-developed financial sector is beneficial for a nation’s economic growth and promoting entrepreneurship. Yet the growth of the finance industry that we have seen since the 1970s has been accompanied with a complementary growth in the proportion of finance engaged in value extraction rather than value creation.
In other words, most of finance goes back into itself rather than into productive uses. Global wealth continues to balloon while it is increasingly outstripping economic growth; aggregate global net worth is now 5.4 times global GDP, compared to 4.7 times in 2000. Corporations have also directed triple the amount toward buybacks and dividends in 2000 compared with the combined total from 1971 to 1999. Meanwhile, the share of net reinvestments have gone down compared to shareholder payouts. This data reveals a pattern: Modern finance increasingly circulates within itself rather than funding productive economic activity, creating what economists call a “speculation economy” separate from the productive economy. The trend of deregulation, sparked by Reagan-era policies in the 80s, has allowed the finance sector to boom without direction or intention.
This trend of deregulation has continued under the current administration. In September of 2025, the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) disbanded two committees responsible for overseeing climate risks in finance. The reason given for this disbandment is to streamline financial regulation—to “unlock more economic growth.” Earlier this year, the Federal Reserve decided to no longer consider “reputational risk” in assessing banks. “Reputational risk” describes the public perception of banks on their performance in non-financial indicators such as social value, ethics and more.
What we need is the courage to provide direction. That starts with putting in place the right incentives and regulations to orient the financial sector toward long-term, productive investment rather than short-term speculation. At the same time, the corporate pipeline should not function as an inevitable vacuum that pulls bright young graduates into roles that generate little social value. Allowing talented and ambitious minds to pursue science, public service, clean energy, infrastructure, and community development is essential if we want an economy that genuinely serves the public good. Reducing income inequality must be part of this effort; an economy built on extraction and widening gaps cannot sustain shared prosperity or democratic stability. Ultimately, we need to create useful, dignified jobs, strengthen regulations that keep finance accountable, and build systems that reward true value.
Gen Z needs to be given back agency. Although framed as a matter of individual choice, the flood of students into corporate industries is a choice made under structural constraints. What if our economy was designed to support those who contribute—to empower changemakers, innovators, and caretakers rather than penalize them for choosing meaning? We need the courage to reclaim collective control over what—and whom—our economy and educational institutions truly serve.