I've had a play around with Jsp in the past like Dog and Pony I have some Java experience but I'm mainly a Perl head. IMHO I think Perl has to be the winner for it's ease of development. This is really because of two issues:

1. Java is a fully OO language and you do get all the benefits with that. However the initial developmemt time is longer and for most online transaction processing systems (which it sounds like you have) it's a bit of overkill. Quite simply Perl is a quicker solution (and from my own memories of university I seem to remember that deadlines have a habit of looming unexpectedly ;-). I know the counter point to this is that the OO developmemt makes extension and growth easier. But don't forget Perl allows OO development too so if you wish to go that way it still possible.
2. I've found (often to my own misfortune) that Java - Jsp - Servlets have quite a high lead time in actually setting the environment. Again I'm thinking about that fact that you probably do not have the luxury of time (if you did you could develop a system in both languages and make an informed decision ;-). With this is mind most UNIX systems come with Perl installed and most modules available. Or of you are of the Windows frame of mind there are Perl versions for that too.

I'd ignore the whole speed issue for the moment. The design of your system will impact speed more than language choice at this point (I'm thinking of issues like web page caching, persistent database connections, precompiled SQL statements...).

As for the pay point.... I have to say that in general Java developers are paid more than Perl developers. But the difference is not that big - have a look on some job web sites sometime and compare salaries for development positions requiring similar experience.

I've written a bit more than I intended to (sorry about that) but I've tried to give the best advice I can. I think that Perl would be the way to go (but then you might expect that this being perlmonks and not javamonks). Have a look at this link - it's got a good review on issues of Jsp vs Perl (and other server side langhuages too: PHP etc.) It does not specifically deal with Jsp but it does talk a lot about Servlets (which you would probably call at some point from a Jsp page) and compare preformance issues.

And then make you own mind up (go on choose Perl.... you know you want to...).