I educate economics at John Jay School of the Metropolis College of New York, dwelling of one of many nation’s main MA packages in heterodox economics. And we’re accepting functions for Fall 2025.
It is a pitch for why individuals ought to research economics right here. If that’s not for you, that’s okay; however please ahead it on to anybody who is likely to be .
Since 2017, John Jay School has provided a MA program in economics. (The division web site is right here.) It’s one of many solely graduate packages within the nation that teaches economics from an explicitly heterodox perspective, the place Marxian, Keynesian, feminist and ecological views get equal billing with the traditional economics curriculum.
Of their first yr, a scholar within the MA program will take rigorous lessons in microeconomics, macroeconomics, econometrics and math for economists, simply as they might in different packages. However they may additionally take lessons in financial historical past, political economic system (the place they’ll learn Marx’s Capital, amongst different issues) and neighborhood financial growth.
For a small, comparatively new and little-known program, we get some superb college students. Lately, we’ve had as many as eight individuals in a yr go on to PhD packages, out of a typical getting into class of 15; this should be one of many highest proportions of any economics MA program within the nation.
We even have many college students who come right here not as a step towards additional research, however to strengthen their work in journalism, public coverage, advocacy or electoral politics. Individuals who have studied economics at John Jay embody Kate Aronoff, creator of Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet, and now a columnist at The New Republic; Aída Chávez, former workers author for The Intercept and DC correspondent for The Nation, and now communications director at Simply Overseas Coverage; Jack Gross, editor of the web journal Phenomenal World; Lauren Melodia, Director of Financial and Fiscal Coverage on the Middle for New York Metropolis Affairs; Rajiv Sicora, legislative director for the United Autoworkers; Anisha Steephens, Senior Coverage Advisor for Racial Fairness on the U.S. Division of the Treasury within the Biden administration; Nathan Tankus, creator of Notes on the Crises, and analysis director of the Fashionable Cash Community; and Paul Williams, founder and govt director of the Middle for Public Enterprise.
College students within the John Jay economics program have additionally served as workers for various elected officers, together with Congressman Jamaal Bowman, New York Assemblymembers Ron Kim and Julia Salazar, and New York Metropolis Councilmember Carlina Rivera. Different college students have discovered work doing financial evaluation at authorities businesses just like the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the place a number of of our former college students now work.
A few of our college students come into this system with undergraduate levels in economics, however many don’t. (We do require a BA of some variety.) Some come straight out of faculty, however many are older. All we ask is a willingness to work onerous, and an curiosity within the bigger questions that economics is supposed to assist save — a want each to grasp the world and to alter it. Yearly I’m amazed on the seriousness, creativity, and dedication of our college students, and the vary of backgrounds and pursuits they create to this system.
John Jay financial isn’t just an educational program, it’s a neighborhood. College students and school collect frequently for beer and dialog (normally in Brooklyn, the place most of us stay.) Subsequent week we’ll be having our spring barbecue at a neighborhood backyard, with audio system and bands. There are common workshops and lectures. It is a division the place you’ll discover college students and school not solely working collectively on analysis initiatives, however organizing public occasions, internet hosting podcasts, writing op-eds, and talking out in opposition to the warfare in Gaza. Very often, our college students go on to grow to be our colleagues — a lot of our undergraduate class are taught by our former college students, and in contrast to many departments, we attempt to embody adjuncts and different contingent school in division governance as a lot as doable.
We’re additionally an unusually various division. Whereas white males are closely overrepresented within the economics occupation nationally, we’re proud that half of our school are ladies. In our early graduate cohorts, a majority of scholars have been Black or Latinx, and a majority have been ladies. Whereas these proportions shift from yr to yr, we constantly have way more nonwhite and feminine and nonbinary college students than most economics graduate packages. If valuing this makes us “woke,” we’ll put on that label with satisfaction.
We’re positioned in midtown Manhattan, close to Columbus Circle, simply accessible by transit from wherever within the New York metro space. All of our lessons are in-person, and meet within the night for one two-hour session per week. Twelve programs are required for commencement. Fulltime college students usually take three lessons per semester, and end in two years. However college students with heavier skilled or private obligations are welcome to attend part-time, taking fewer than three lessons per semester and taking correspondingly longer to graduate.
Whereas we are able to’t usually provide monetary help, John Jay may be very reasonably priced in contrast with comparable packages elsewhere. For New York State residents, tuition is $1,410 per course, or $8,460 per yr for college students taking the usual six programs. (The entire price is identical should you unfold your coursework out over extra years.) For comparability, tuition on the New College for Social Analysis, which additionally gives an economics MA with a robust heterodox element, is $7,320 per three-credit course — about 5 instances as a lot.
For out of state college students, our tuition is $2,565 per course. That you must have lived in New York State for one yr to qualify for in-state tuition.
At this second, it appears to me, the prospect to check economics in a program that’s each rigorous and engaged with radical politics, at an reasonably priced public college within the coronary heart of New York, is one thing that many individuals could be excited by. The issue is, the nice majority of these individuals do not know we’re right here. So I’m asking individuals to share this publish. Specifically, should you educate faculty college students, please contemplate forwarding this message or a hyperlink to the John Jay Economics Division web site to your division checklist.
Once more, the division web site is right here, with extra data. I’m all the time pleased to speak with anybody contemplating making use of; when you’ve got any questions on this system, be at liberty to achieve out to me at [email protected].
Admission are open till the tip of July. The appliance type is right here. And, as soon as extra, if you understand anybody who is likely to be — a school senior excited about graduate college; an activist or skilled who desires a deeper data of economics — and who lives in New York or wish to, please ahead this to them.