Heh. On my second day in engineering school, I had a class where the teacher asked "how many people are here to make money?" He then pointed to where the school of business was. And engineers actually make money. Well, some do. But rarely is it enough on a effort per dollar ratio. And in fact I'm not a practicing engineer.
I've heard it said that writers don't write because they want to, but because they have to. I like to, but I don't have to. Which is why I'm currently perfectly happy with my amateur status. But it is good advice for others.
This has always been an interesting conundrum to me. If, in fact, business/management education guarantees more money than engineering or teaching or any other profession, why don't we have far more business/management people in industry than we do?
My unprofessional but highly anecdotal examination of this reveals that, in most schools, we
do have a lot of "business/management" students. They don't typically find their classes "hard" compared to those of the "more demanding" disciplines, either, so it's not that the subjects are necessarily hard to learn. (I am not disparaging them nor saying they're less smart or any such thing; just noting that the subjects are not as difficult, apparently, as, say, quantum physics or embedded system coding.)
So, then, if we're producing more business/management students than engineers, why are they apparently paid more? One in theory needs fewer managers than engineers, so supply being higher than for a job with lower demand would seem to dictate that managers should be paid less than their underlings by simple competition for the same post.
I think I've come up with the answer, though: there's a reason business managers get MBAs rather than sticking with undergrad degrees. Most people who graduate with a "business" degree wind up being "office grunts" if they can find a job at all. Those unwilling to do that work often are jobless. Though you need fewer managers than engineers, management really IS a lot of hard administrative work. And the higher you go, the stiffer the competition for the jobs are...but also the better and more dedicated you must be to it. So the high salaries, bonuses, etc. are there because every business wants the hardest working, best, brightest, and most successful leaders they can get.
In theory, there is a ton of competition from other business graduates. In practice, there must be something our academic system can't teach and for which it can't measure that makes the rich ones truly worth paying high prices to get. And since companies do have a fairly easy time winnowing out what must be thousands of applicants to get down to "short lists," there is something that helps them make the decision.
Cronyism and expectations wouldn't be sufficient to keep these executives highly-paid if there wasn't a true need for attracting specific talent and skill and dedication. I guarantee you, for instance, that the NYT
could find somebody who'd do the CEO job for paid apartment rent, $30,000/year, and benefits. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of business professionals with degrees in management. But how many could really do the job? (One might argue, given NYT's current state, that they are overpaying for somebody who can't right now, but...you still get my point.)