This is the first of three articles in which Tom Park (Tuck MBA 2010) explores the major challenges facing today’s MBA graduates.

It must have been a great day when Fabrice Tourre was accepted to Stanford to study. It must have been a better day when he received his full-time offer at Goldman Sachs on the cusp of one of the greatest stock market rallies of the post-War era. How could it not go wrong?

Fast forward a couple of years. Wow, it can go really wrong. Now dubbed “Fabulous Fab” by the media, he has been dragged in front of Congress and is facing prosecution by U.S. regulatory authorities. What happened?

What happened is the public backlash. Tourre’s story is engrossing not only because of his role in selling dud securities to the public, but how much he’s an iconoclast of the typical MBA student and, more importantly, how the general public perceives us.

Looking at Tourre is like looking into a mirror and seeing a side of ourselves we may try to ignore. Because let’s face it, a lot of MBA students feel that the degree entitles them to the position of a shaman in any organization they find themselves in and that a degree from a top-flight school confers a wisdom beyond his or her peers.

The economic crisis of the last two years, which is likely to continue, marked a dramatic culmination in several forces that have and continue to have a direct effect on holders of MBAs and those who are seeking to be leaders in business.

Those forces are: public disillusionment with the positive role of business within society, the growing lack of job security amongst management ranks spurred by globalization, and the greater demand for MBA skills outside of the traditional realm of business.

I intend to explore these three themes in separate articles based on the last few years of my post-graduate education in the U.S. as well as some of the extracurricular projects I’ve worked on. It’s based on an honest belief that the traditional tenets of the MBA career path have been completely undone while at the same time there is a tremendous opportunity for all of us to change the nature of business leadership.

Tea Time in the Halls of Congress

I get asked the following question a lot from prospective MBAs: “How’s the job market in the US for internationals?”

The answer: not so good.

We knew something was up when the first Tea Party rallies began. For most internationals, the Tea party movement is no more than a disorganized mob of ignorant yokels incited by U.S. cable news programs. But it’s not. It’s the face of middle class America: embattled, embittered, and mobilized.

Middle class America, the type of people who work in white and blue collar jobs across the country, should be the last demographic who have anything to complain about.

The U.S. enjoyed the longest period of economic growth in the post war era, reflected in one of the greatest stock market rallies in history. More and more Americans became homeowners and shareholders. The 1990s and early 2000s were a period of tremendous prosperity. So how can they have anything to complain about?

Three economic trends tell the story of where the angst comes from: an unemployment rate near 10%, higher workforce productivity, and deflation of real wages.

More than 30 million Americans have no job, and that’s not including those who have given up or who are forced to work part time rather than full time. What’s worse is that the number of long term unemployed keeps increasing. You’ve read the stories of lawyers-turned-comedians, or finance gurus into furniture sales man. The employment pie became a lot smaller.

The situation is not much better for those in work. Increasing productivity means people are working harder for the same pay check. Longer hours and less job security mean people are feeling increasingly under threat. Medical, accounting, and legal services are increasingly outsourced, as well as research and development, design, and marketing functions.

But it’s the third trend that has probably pushed the middle class over the edge: real wage stagflation for the past decade.

In my global economics class, my teacher, Matt Slaughter, pointed to a trend in real wages over a 10 year period. It showed that, unless you had an MD, JD, or an MBA, you didn’t see any rise in your income.

That’s right. Even if you finished a PhD, your wages compared to your peers from 10 years ago are lower. Wage stagflation means the middle class isn’t getting wealthier; they’re feeling poorer, which is frustrating when everyone is telling them that they’re living in a period of tremendous growth.

Having to work harder for a job that may not be there tomorrow at a wage lower than the historical average? Was that enough to drive people to the streets? Well, no. Even when some people’s entire savings were wiped out by the economic crisis, they didn’t go out.It was when the government used their money to bail someone else out – that drove people to the streets.

Let me tell you what happened in the US from the perspective of the middle class.

When the economic crisis destroyed the savings and economic outlook for most of Middle America, things couldn’t have been better for those who received the government bailout. The banks and corporations were saved, and the bonuses came back. But the jobs are not coming back and a bulk of this constituency is about to retire in the next 10-15 years. And there are mid-term elections in November.

Hence the Tea Parties, congressional hearings, Buy America and TARP foreign student employment restrictions, and our poor friend Tourre dragged in front of Congress.

Philip Roach, former head of Morgan Stanley and currently a member of Yale’s School of Management faculty wrote in The Next Asia that the greatest threat to globalization is from the growing disenchantment of the U.S. public with the benefits of globalization.

With white collar jobs being outsourced in addition to the traditional manufacturing sector, the middle class was exposed to fierce competition for jobs that weren’t perceived to be outsourced. Which is why international students will have a harder time finding full-time employment in the U.S.

This is the reality of American business and, despite a brief upturn in employment for the class of 2011, it’s unlikely the country will experience the kind of growth it did prior to the Great Bust.

So for those internationals hoping to work in the U.S., you face a tougher road. The TARP restrictions on foreign student employment may not be in the offering again, but no doubt US employers, sensitive to their negative public image, will be reluctant to hire nationals.

Internationals have always had a challenge finding full time employment in the U.S. after business schools. It will be more so in the next few years.

Tom Park has just completed an MBA at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, class of 2010. He studied law at McGill and public policy at Harvard. Between 2004 and 2007 he worked in the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the OSCE Mission in Pristina, Kosovo and the UN Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Cambodia. Previously he was an associate at McCarthy Tetrault, Canada's largest law firm.