Boston University or USC for finance: which is better for a career in investment banking and finance jobs?

The biggest practical tradeoff is East Coast proximity versus West Coast network. For investment banking specifically, Boston University benefits from being much closer to New York and Boston, which makes informational interviews, in-semester networking, and travel for recruiting materially easier. USC, though, has a very powerful alumni network and especially strong reach in Los Angeles, Southern California, and West Coast finance circles, including investment banking, private wealth, and some buy-side paths.

If your target is traditional investment banking recruiting, especially with New York in mind, BU probably has the cleaner geographic advantage. Being in Boston also puts you near a dense finance ecosystem, and that matters because banking recruiting often rewards repeated in-person contact, alumni coffees, and easier access to internships during the school year. BU’s Questrom School of Business is well known and sends students into finance, but you will still need to be proactive because it is not one of the tiny cluster of schools where banking recruiting is especially automatic.

USC can absolutely place students into strong finance jobs too, and its Trojan network is real. USC tends to be especially attractive if you think you may want Los Angeles banking, media and entertainment finance, real estate, or West Coast corporate finance. Marshall has a strong undergraduate business presence, and USC alumni can be unusually responsive, which helps in a relationship-driven field.

If your goal is New York IB and you want the more practical recruiting setup, I would lean BU. If you want broader flexibility across high-finance, corporate finance, and West Coast opportunities, USC is the one I’d pick.