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Whats the best masters course in the world if you want to work at a hedge fund? Its not in the Ivy League, and it certainly not at MIT.

What youre looking for is the masters in financial engineering (MFE) offered by Baruch College, a small and selective public college in New York. Why? Because it topped QuantNets 2024 global ranking of American MFE programs. As it did in 2023, 2022, and 2021, when QuantNets rankings began.

The average salary of Baruchs MFE grads was an astronomical $220k, behind second place Princeton, where graduates had an average salary of $240k.

Fees for Baruchs MFE are just $29k for New York state residents and $42k for out of state and international students. At second-place Princeton and third-place Carnegie Mellon, the comparable fees for masters in financial engineering courses are $126k and $97k, respectively.

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A cheap price tag doesnt mean a cheap experience, however. Last year's students interned at funds including Balyasny, Millennium, Verition, and Point72, as well as at banks like Goldman Sachs and trading firms like Virtu Financial.

Last year, we spoke to Dan Stefanica, the MFEs course director since its inception in 2002. He said that an increasing number of Baruch MFEs were choosing hedge funds, although its not just because of the compensation offered there. Hedge funds have been turning up on campus before investment banks, Stefanica said. "Hedge funds began interviewing our students in August this year," he said. "Banks stayed on their typical schedule of interviewing in October and November."

A pretty huge 75% of the class of 23 went to work at a hedge fund, prop trader, or asset manager after graduation (the rest went to investment banks). Its a big number, and its also a pretty substantial increase on last years 50% in those three industries, or the year before thats 32%.

What makes Baruch so special? Stefanica says it's a combination of excellent alumni links and the presence of full-time professors drawn from the industry, including Jim Gatheral, a former equity derivatives trader at Merrill Lynch, and Andrew Lesniewski, who developed the SABR volatility model.

How do you get in? Stefanica said that student numbers werent fixed, and that the course took all the students who met their standards - but last years class had only 24 people. Many who apply don't make the grade. Baruch interviews "a considerable number" of students in a two-stage process focused on technical questions, Stefanica said.

The majority of those who succeed are international students, and in particular students from China: "Chinese students come to us because they want to start their careers in the U.S. financial markets," Stefanica said. "But one of our best ever students was American," he added.

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The cheap course that will get you a $1m job in a hedge fund - eFinancialCareers