>Those jobs are desirable to graduates because they pay lots of money. End of story. There's more to it than that. I can't speak for the mindset of consulting

>Those jobs are desirable to graduates because they pay lots of money. End of story. There's more to it than that. I can't speak for the mindset of consulting jobs like McKinsey but for jobs like Goldman Sachs, there truly is a set of people that enjoy finance and therefore, working there or at one of the other prestigious bulge bracket firms (Citi, JP Morgan, etc) would be more interesting to them than working as an "Assistant to the Comptroller of the local city government". Are there graduates that hate finance and only want a Goldman job only for the money? Yes. But those people are also not best suited for a low-paying job such as "Assistant to the Comptroller of the local city government".