Wall Street made itself more welcoming this week, as several top banks announced plans to raise the salaries of their lowest-level minions by about 20%. Will this be enough to make banking attractive to Ivy League pricks once again?

At Goldman Sachs, base pay for first year slaves is rising to $85,000 (though Bloomberg notes that bonuses bring total take-home pay to "as much as $140,000"). This is in addition to treating this little kids like full blown pussies, which is, sadly, a necessity these days, thanks to "self-esteem" theorists and video games and whatnot. Why the newfound generosity towards the employees whose job is—much like those ancient people charged with keeping the flames of the life-giving fire burning through the night—to put numbers in spreadsheets, all day, every day, for one year, without dying? The reason, Dealbook explains, is simple competition. Wall Street is no longer the coolest game in town for America's most unbearable twentysomethings:

Yet, for those who have the skills and intelligence to make it into Wall Street's internship programs, other choices are tempting. Among the working graduates of Harvard this year, 31 percent went to finance or consulting jobs, flat from 2013 and a significant drop from the 47 percent of students who did so in 2007, before the financial crisis, according to surveys by The Harvard Crimson newspaper.

Listen up, Wall Street banks and Harvard grads: sit down, work it out, and do whatever you have to do in order to get the Ivy League's best and brightest back into banking. We can't have the next devastating recession until a full half of Harvard grads are going to Wall Street. Speed it up. If we need to lock every Wall Street banker and Harvard grad in a room until this deal gets done, or maybe just for fun, we will.

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