Skip to main content

Stock market’s students feel its pain

When Derek Jose enrolled in the University of Wisconsin’s Stephen L. Hawk Center for Applied Security Analysis in September 2007, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was racing to 14,000 and the program’s freshly minted grads were settling into investment jobs that paid an average of $84,000 plus bonuses.

Now, Jose is 28, newly married, burdened by $60,000 in student loans and on the cusp of graduating into an investment world shattered by a calamitous bear market.

Welcome to Wall Street, kid.