Econ 101 is failing college students (with Abigail Acheson and Nouhaila Oudija)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

Business, Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 18 April 2023

⏱️ 32 minutes

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Summary

Universities across America are still teaching an outdated, neoclassical way of economic thinking. The trickle-down curriculums taught in Econ 101 classrooms aren’t just bad for students—they have had disastrous, far-reaching effects on the economy. Decades of bad education has left students adrift: A new study from Rethinking Economics reveals that the majority of college students are critical of the US economic system, with a large majority believing it needs to change. Can we redesign economic curriculums to better reflect how the economy really works? Abigail Acheson is network coordinator and staff organizer with the US Rethinking Economics National Network. A recent graduate, Abigail is dedicated to revitalizing student organizing for curriculum change at universities. Nouhaila Oudija is a researcher and consultant at RE-USA. She recently published a research project about college students' attitudes around the US economic system and about the lack of diversity of thought in economics curricula. Twitter: @RethinkEcon_USA, @rethinkecon Economics is Failing US College Students https://www.rethinkeconomics.org/2022/10/18/econ-failing-us-students Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer

Transcript

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0:00.0	Almost all of college students think the economy needs significant transformation.
0:06.4	The large majority of the theories and models we are taught derive from the classical economics.
0:12.2	Our colleges are training the leaders, the movers, the shakers, the innovators of the future
0:17.9	to have the discipline fail to provide students a basic understanding of how
0:22.4	power, privilege, and oppression interact and shape the world we live in
0:25.7	prepares graduates of economic programs to go out into the world
0:29.6	thinking that what they know is neutral.
0:36.8	From the home offices of civic ventures in downtown Seattle, this is pitchfork economics,
0:41.9	with Nick Hanauer, the best place to get the truth about who gets what and why.
0:52.7	I'm Nick Hanauer, founder of Civic Ventures.
0:56.0	I'm David Goldstein, senior fellow at Civic Ventures.
1:03.8	So Nick, it should come as no surprise that economics has been failing us as a nation,
1:10.2	as a world, but failing young people in particular because they're the ones who are going to
1:17.0	inherit this screwed up world that we're creating.
1:21.0	But it isn't just that the economy is failing them.
1:24.6	It turns out that the economics profession, academic economics is failing young people as well.
1:30.8	Count me stunned and surprised.
1:33.8	But the good news is they recognize it.
1:38.4	I mean, it's funny because our guests today from rethinking economics of this new report out,
1:46.4	that details basically how dissatisfied kids who are taking economics in college are both
1:52.4	about the economy and the economics they're being taught. And it reminds me that there was basically
1:58.0	one course I dropped in college, which was on 101. For the same damn reasons, these people are
	...

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