Rhodes Scholars Run From Oxford to Wall Street

This year's roster of Rhodes Scholars was announced last night, making 32 American overachievers giddy at the thought of two years of free study at Oxford. But the American secretary of the Rhodes trust isn't as excited. Eliot Gerson is distressed by the number of Rhodes scholars who leave Oxford and go directly to Wall Street without passing Go—or the universities, research centers, and developing nations where they used to spend some time. Gerson says outsized executive compensation is making it more difficult for the best and the brightest to ignore the siren song of the business world, and other sectors are suffering as a result. He doesn't necessarily have a problem with finance and wouldn't think it bad if a few graduates ended up there. But last year, more than twice as many Rhodes Scholars went from Oxford to Wall Street as did during the entire 1970s. And they're not doing it because they really care about finance, Gerson says: They just want to make bank. He doesn't fault them for it; after all, the alternative is for scholars "to ask themselves what kind of chumps they are to give up the chance to earn 100 or 500 times as much as their mentors, their doctors, their favorite professors." But he is skeptical that cushy investment bank jobs will really be the best thing for Oxford's talented grads, not to mention society. "Never mind that some have gifts that realistically could be expected to lead to world-changing breakthroughs, cures or innovations; to greater respect for politics; or to hundreds of profoundly moved and inspired students," he writes. It's hard to cure cancer when you're working 80-hour weeks at Goldman Sachs.

Read original story in The Washington Post | Sunday, Nov. 22, 2009