Salary
Average Salary: $78,600
Expected Lifetime Earnings: $3,281,000
The money is quite good even at the junior levels. In fact, on just a salary basis, consultants are the highest-paid group out of business school. However, they technically aren't the highest-paid group; those are hedge fund managers. Unlike consultants, hedge fund managers aren't nearly so limited in the number of hours per day that they can bill.
Still, consultants are making bank. They can start post-undergrad with a $100,000 salary; once they've got that MBA, that salary can jump to $200,000 a year; and, after ten years, they might be making $1 million a year (source). But the same hard-driving, hedge fund manager might be making ten times that amount.
However, the work is totally different; hedge fund managers die career death all the time, whereas consultants tend to be around for a very long time. Old consultants don't die; they just amortize themselves into oblivion.