My opinions on Fordham are on record, and since they've never responded to my (surprisingly polite) requests for information, I have to assume that they've not fully addressed the issues they've had with the MSQF.
That being said, relatively few MFE entry level people reach basic competence in programming.
Richard raises an interesting point about the game theory about aiming high/ low as a risk management problem.
Let's assume that supply & demand for masters level financial engineers moves against those with that skill.
Who will survive in that environment ?
I agree that Risk is currently growing, and maybe more will be needed in ops but as they the 'singles' that Richard cites, it is reasonable to expect them to be more crowded.
If you aim high and hit then you can get to place that fewer other people can reach, which is both more secure and lucrative.
Thus our normal intuition that risk increases monotonically with returns doesn't work here.
I don't yet have a coherent model of the new normal in trading, except to observe that if prop desks are spun off then presumably they will need at least as many staff as when they were part of larger firms. This balanced by the fact that costs both direct and indirect are going up, so there will be less cash in this industry.
That may mean more aggressive outsourcing which will hit mid office quite hard.
