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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Programs in the fields this career usually comes through. Each has its own page: what it takes to get in, the courses you need and what it costs.
The median pay is about $102,740 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $63,720 at the lower end to about $180,860 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
4 to 6 years after high school, on the usual route.
$31,000 to $50,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
No. There is no license to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Very high demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$102,740
Bottom tenth
$63,720
Top tenth
$180,860
The national median is $102,740 a year, the bottom tenth earn $63,720 or less and the top tenth $180,860 or more, in the 2025 federal wage survey. The survey groups financial analysts and investment analysts together. It counts salary, and it does not fully count the annual bonuses many firms in this field pay on top.
$63,720 to $79,290
The bottom tenth and bottom quarter of financial and investment analysts, 2025
A first analyst job at a bank, an asset manager or a company finance team usually pays in this lower part of the range. Investment banking analyst roles in New York expect very long weeks. A corporate finance job usually lets you have evenings.
$133,340 or more
What the best paid quarter of financial and investment analysts earned in 2025, before bonuses
Bonuses are paid once a year, based on the firm's year and yours. In bad years the bonus can be nothing, and in the worst years the job goes with it. Never plan your life around the bonus.
Roughly, all in
$31,000 to $50,000
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.
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 many analysts every 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. Few students do it, which is 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.
In finance, the summer internship before your final year is where many 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.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Money and finance first, then the rest of the field. See every career in business and money.
Last checked October 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. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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