Bankers Leave Street in Rear View; Head for Academia

With the financial tornado buffeting Wall Street, some of its leading figures are ditching their careers for work in academia, Time reports. Merrill Lynch’s former president is teaching at Yale; Citigroup’s former merger boss headed to Berkeley; a onetime Goldman Sachs exec is now at Harvard. “It’s hard work for little pay,” notes a Goldman veteran now at New York University.

In the past, such Streeter-to-scholar transitions were usually reserved for those approaching retirement or with mid-level jobs—not the often young, top figures now migrating. But the credit crunch has damaged financial firms to the point where such execs may not have much to do. And they’ve also suffered a blow to their image, making the switch more appealing. (More bankers stories.)