Feeling down, hoping for some helpful career advice

So I'm in the point of my life where I'm married, have a 1 year, and make a decent amount of money that I don't want to give up my lifestyle to take on a lesser paid position.

However, after graduating with an MBA from Fordham (I know not top tier) my wife and I were moving back to Michigan for family/personal reasons so I never did any recruiting here for associate positions and the market in Michigan is rather small, so I never got into a role there either.

I wound up becoming a business analyst (IT) at a healthcare company and have been doing that for 3 years now, but looking back at those student loans, I really feel like it's such a waste if I don't ever get to use that education.

I'm looking to get back into the finance realm but in order to move I'd need a position around 110-120k salary to justify leaving my current position. What would my options be for that? I know Associate level positions are at that range and higher, but given that I'm not a fresh MBA grad, is it still possible for me to get into an associate role without any prior banking experience? I was a trade assistant for commodity hedging through my graduate studies, and did some side work for investment analysis type stuff, but that's it as far as my finance experience goes that is relevant.

So I guess what I'm really asking for is advice on what to do to move my career in banking forward? Would VC or PE be possible, or just potentially IB associate?

 

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