Work out what a company or an investment is really worth, and explain it to people betting money on your answer.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Good for a wall or a guidance counsellor.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$102,740
Starting out
$63,720
Senior analyst
$180,860
The national median is $102,740 a year, and the bottom tenth start near $63,720. The survey groups financial analysts and investment analysts together. It counts salary, and a large slice of pay in this field is an annual bonus, so the real spread at the top is wider than the published figure.
$64,000 to $85,000
Analyst at a bank, an asset manager or a company finance team
Investment banking analyst roles in New York pay well above this and expect 70 to 90 hour weeks in return. A corporate finance job in a mid-size city pays less and lets you have evenings.
Often 10% to 100% of salary
Paid once a year, based on the firm's year and yours
In good years the bonus can be as large as the salary. In bad years it is nothing, and in the worst years the job goes with it. Never plan your life around the bonus.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is two years at a community college then a transfer to an in state public university, plus the Securities Industry Essentials exam at $100, which you can sit without an employer sponsoring you. The high end is four years paid straight through at in state public rates plus the full Chartered Financial Analyst program across its three levels. A master of business administration comes later, is optional, and employers often pay a share, so it is in neither figure. What separates candidates is the internship, not the price of the school.
File the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) every year. This is a field where a state university plus a good internship beats an expensive private degree with no internship.
Employer-paid exams
Most firms cover the fees and study materials for the Chartered Financial Analyst program and any licensing exams.
Retirement savings with a match
A 401(k) plan where the employer adds money on top of what you contribute.
Skills that move
Valuation and modeling work the same way at a bank, a tech company, a hospital system or a state pension fund.
Volatile employment
Finance hires hard in good years and cuts hard in bad ones. Most analysts get laid off at least once.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A degree, an internship, then an optional but powerful set of exams.
High school
Grade 12
Take the hardest math you can handle, plus any economics or accounting elective. Learn spreadsheets properly, not casually.
Bachelor's degree
4 years
Finance, economics, accounting, mathematics or engineering. The subject matters less than the numeracy and the internships.
Internships, especially the summer before your last year
2 summers
In this industry the junior summer internship is effectively the job interview. Firms make full-time offers from it.
First analyst job
2 to 3 years
Two to three years building models, cleaning data and writing the pages someone senior presents.
The Chartered Financial Analyst program, if you want investment work
3 to 4 years alongside work
Three exams taken in order, about 300 hours of study each, plus 4,000 hours of relevant work experience over at least 36 months.
Mathematics and statistics
Probability, compounding and regression. You will use statistics far more than calculus.
Economics
Interest rates, inflation and markets. It gives you the frame the whole job sits inside.
Accounting
You cannot value a company without reading its financial statements. This is the most directly useful class on the list.
English
Analysts write. A recommendation nobody can follow is worth nothing however good the model is.
Most analyst jobs need no license at all. You only need one if you work at a firm that sells securities. The entry exam is the SIE (Securities Industry Essentials), run by FINRA (the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority): 75 questions, 1 hour 45 minutes, $100, open to anyone 18 or over with no employer sponsorship required. Passing it early is a real signal on a student resume. The next exams, including the general securities representative exam, require a member firm to sponsor you, so they come after you are hired.
Big finance recruits heavily from a handful of schools, but the rest of the industry hires everywhere.
New York University Stern School of Business
An undergraduate business degree with a long list of concentrations, in the city where most of the industry sits.
Large public business schools
Michigan, Texas, Illinois, Virginia and others place hundreds of analysts a year and cost in-state prices.
Your nearest state university
Regional banks, insurers, hospital systems and state pension funds all hire analysts and recruit locally.
Community college first
Two years of general credits cheaply, then transfer into a business school. It cuts the tuition bill roughly in half.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Chartered Financial Analyst
Three exams, roughly 300 study hours each, plus 4,000 hours of investment work. The standard credential for portfolio and research jobs.
Certified public accountant
Best if you work close to financial statements, in corporate finance or valuation.
Financial Risk Manager
Aimed at market and credit risk teams at banks and asset managers.
Master of business administration
A career switch or a promotion tool later, rarely worth doing straight out of a degree.
Spreadsheets at a serious level
Building a model from a blank sheet, not just filling one in. This is the practical test in most interviews.
SQL (the language used to pull data out of databases)
Analysts who can get their own data do not wait a week for someone else's report.
Python
Increasingly expected for anything quantitative, and it is the difference between analyst and quantitative analyst roles.
An investing club or a real portfolio
Even a small one. Being able to explain a decision you made and got wrong is a strong interview answer.
Financial analyst covers very different lives. On the buy side you analyze investments for a fund that owns them, which is slower and more analytical. On the sell side you write research for clients and answer the phone all day. In corporate finance you forecast and budget for one company, which is the steadiest version and exists in every industry. Credit analysis at a bank decides whether businesses get loans. Same skills, completely different hours and pressure.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
You start with what moved overnight and what it means for whatever you cover. Most of the day is inside a spreadsheet: updating a model with new results, testing what happens if a number changes, chasing a discrepancy for an hour. Then you write it up, short and clear, and defend it in a meeting where someone senior tries to poke a hole in it. Quarterly earnings seasons are the crunch, and everything is due at once.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
The Securities Industry Essentials exam costs $100 and is open to anyone 18 or over without a firm sponsoring them. Almost no student does it, which is exactly why doing it makes an application stand out.
The Chartered Financial Analyst program is three exams in sequence, about 300 hours of study each, and it usually takes 3 to 4 years while working full time. Most people who start it do not finish.
In finance, the summer internship before your final year is where most full-time offers come from. Applications for it open more than a year in advance, which catches out students who wait until senior year.
Hospitals, school districts, manufacturers, utilities and state governments all employ financial analysts. The work is quieter, the hours are human, and nobody has ever made a film about it.
Last checked September 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in United States dollars, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data and published pay scales. They vary by state, employer and experience. Tuition is for in-state students at public schools unless the card says otherwise.