The Sloan school at MIT is to join the growing number of North American schools that offer a masters degree specialising in finance, for those who want a career on Wall Street.
The 12-month programme will begin in the 2009 academic year and MIT Sloan has a target of 60 students. David Schmittlein, dean of MIT Sloan, says the programme will build on the school’s long tradition in finance. “With a specialised Master of Finance degree, we will strengthen Sloan’s dominance in this field and meet the growing demand for a practically oriented and academically rigorous curriculum in all aspects of financial services.”
The Master of Finance degree has had a distinguished provenance in Europe, where top-ranked institutions such as London Business School, London School of Economics and Cambridge University have established programmes. In France, HEC Paris has run its Masters in Finance programme since 1986.
However, in North America the top business schools have traditionally only offered the MBA, though in the past couple of years both NYU Stern in New York and the Rotman school at the University of Toronto in Canada - both top finance schools - have launched finance masters degrees.
