Help companies raise money, buy other companies or sell themselves, for very high pay and very long weeks.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Associate or vice president
$400,000
First-year analyst
$165,000
Managing director
$1,000,000
Total pay at large New York banks for 2025, from the Mergers and Inquisitions 2026 report. Managing directors often make well over $1 million. The government's broad category, which also includes retail financial sales agents, has a median of $78,660 and leaves out most bonuses.
About $165,000 to $225,000
Base salary of $100,000 to $125,000, plus a year-end bonus
These are New York figures at large banks for 2025, from industry pay reports. The base is fixed. The bonus depends on how your group did and where you rank against the other analysts.
New York, large banks, middle half of reported pay, 2025.
From the Mergers and Inquisitions 2026 pay report. Smaller banks and other cities pay less. From associate up, part of the bonus is paid in company stock you only get if you stay.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is four years at an in-state public university, about $11,000 a year in tuition and fees, plus the $100 Securities Industry Essentials exam you can sit on your own. The high end is four years at a private university that banks recruit from heavily, where list tuition is above $60,000 a year before financial aid. The Series 79 and Series 63 exams come after you are hired and the bank pays for them.
File the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) every year. Elite private schools often give generous aid, so check the net price, not the sticker price.
A big bonus, never guaranteed
It can match your salary in a good year and shrink sharply in a slow one.
Dinners and rides home
Banks usually pay for dinner and a car home when you work late, which is often.
Retirement plan with a match
A 401(k) plan, a retirement account where the bank adds money on top of yours.
Exit options
Two years in banking opens doors to private equity, hedge funds and company finance teams.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Banks hire almost all analysts out of their own summer internships, and they recruit very early.
High school
Grades 9 to 12
Strong grades, the hardest math you can manage, and a school where you can get into a business, economics or finance program.
University, first two years
Years 1 and 2
Join the finance club, learn accounting and spreadsheet modeling, and start networking with alumni at banks.
Recruit for the junior summer internship
Year 2
Applications open about 1.5 to 2 years before the internship starts, often in your second year.
Summer internship
Summer before your last year
About 10 weeks in a bank's office. Most full-time analyst offers come from this summer.
Analyst, then associate
2 to 3 years
Two to three years as an analyst. Many then leave. Those who stay are promoted to associate.
Mathematics
Algebra, statistics and calculus get you into the programs banks recruit from.
Accounting
The job runs on reading company financial statements.
Economics
Interest rates and markets are the background to every deal.
English
You will write pitch books and emails to senior people all day.
Bankers who advise on deals must be registered with FINRA (the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority). You need the SIE (Securities Industry Essentials) exam, which anyone 18 or over can take for $100. Then the Series 79, the investment banking representative exam: 75 questions, 2.5 hours, $395, and only with a bank sponsoring you. Most banks also want the Series 63, a state law exam run by NASAA (the North American Securities Administrators Association).
Banks call the schools they recruit from most "target schools". You can get in from elsewhere, but it takes much more networking.
Ivy League and similar private schools
Penn's Wharton school, Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, Yale and Cornell send large classes to banks.
New York University Stern School of Business
In the city where most of the jobs are.
Large public business schools
Michigan, Virginia, the University of California, Berkeley and Texas at Austin, at in-state prices if you live there.
Everywhere else
Regional banks and smaller firms hire from state schools near them.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Spreadsheet modeling
Build a three-statement model and a valuation from a blank sheet before interviews.
A finance club or investment club
Where most students first meet bankers and learn the technical questions.
Earlier internships
A first or second year internship at a smaller firm makes the big one easier to land.
Alumni networking
Short calls with people at the bank. At most banks, someone vouching for you matters.
The SIE (Securities Industry Essentials) exam
You can pass it as a student. It shows you are serious.
Accounting courses beyond the minimum
Technical interviews test them hard.
Stamina and sleep habits
Late nights are the job for the first years.
A second language
Useful for cross-border deals and offices abroad.
Most analysts do not plan to stay for 20 years. After 2 or 3 years, many leave for private equity, hedge funds, or a finance job inside a company, where the hours are shorter. Some move from a smaller bank to a bigger one. The few who stay become associates, then vice presidents, and the managing directors at the top spend most of their time winning clients.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
You arrive around 9 am and check what changed overnight. Most of the day goes on updating financial models and building slides for a pitch or a live deal. Senior bankers send comments in the evening, so the real work often starts after dinner. A late finish is 2 am. On a live deal, weekends disappear. On a quiet day you wait for feedback, then get an urgent request at 5 pm.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
In 2021, 13 first-year analysts at Goldman Sachs surveyed themselves and reported working an average of 98 hours a week and sleeping about 5 hours a night. Their slides went viral on Instagram.
In May 2024, a 35-year-old Bank of America associate died after weeks of very long hours. That September, JPMorgan Chase (the largest US bank) said it would cap junior bankers at 80 hours a week in most cases, with live deals exempt.
In 2024, a 19-second TikTok clip about looking for "a man in finance" with a trust fund passed 40 million views and became a real single. The real job is far less glamorous than the clips.
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 all business and money careers.
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.