Graduates of the nation’s most elite business schools are increasingly choosing careers in the high tech sector instead of the traditional finance jobs which the best business grads used to choose.

The recent financial crisis seems to be to blame for the changing trend, in addition to the long hours Wall Street demands on its workers and the less competitive compensation packages of late.

Harvard Business School saw an increase of 6 percent of its grads taking hi-tech jobs instead of in finance from last year’s 12 percent to this year’s 18 percent. Yale and Cornell Universities are seeing similar statistics.

The numbers of students taking jobs in finance has experienced a concomitant decline this year at Harvard, with 27 percent of their business school grads landing jobs in that sector, as opposed to 35 percent in 2012. At the MIT Sloan School of Management graduates took jobs in finance only 16 percent of the time, down from 27 percent last year.

Money may not be the only factor determining the shift in business school graduate’s career choices. Some analysts say the culture and mission of such companies as Google and LinkedIn are tempting students away from jobs in finance.

Derrick Bolton, assistant dean and director of MBA admission and the interim director of career management at Stanford’s business school says that students are asking,

“Where’s the place that I can drive innovation? Where’s the place that I can have the most impact?”