I train 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 12 months, a scholar within the MA program will take rigorous courses in microeconomics, macroeconomics, econometrics and math for economists, simply as they’d in different packages. However they may additionally take courses in financial historical past, political economic system (the place they’ll learn Marx’s Capital, amongst different issues) and neighborhood financial improvement.
For a small, comparatively new and little-known program, we get some wonderful college students. In recent times, we’ve had as many as eight individuals in a 12 months go on to PhD packages, out of a typical coming into class of 15; this have to 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 embrace Kate Aronoff, writer of Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet, and now a columnist at The New Republic; Aída Chávez, former employees author for The Intercept and DC correspondent for The Nation, and now communications director at Simply International Coverage; Jack Gross, editor of the net 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, writer of Notes on the Crises, and analysis director of the Trendy 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 employees for plenty of 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 companies 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 sort.) Some come straight out of school, however many are older. All we ask is a willingness to work laborious, 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 carry to this system.
John Jay financial is not only an instructional program, it’s a neighborhood. College students and college collect repeatedly for beer and dialog (often 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 college not solely working collectively on analysis initiatives, however organizing public occasions, internet hosting podcasts, writing op-eds, and talking out towards the warfare in Gaza. Very often, our college students go on to turn out 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 embrace adjuncts and different contingent school in division governance as a lot as potential.
We’re additionally an unusually numerous 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 12 months to 12 months, we persistently have much 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 pleasure.
We’re situated in midtown Manhattan, close to Columbus Circle, simply accessible by transit from anyplace within the New York metro space. All of our courses 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 courses 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 courses per semester and taking correspondingly longer to graduate.
Whereas we will’t usually provide monetary assist, John Jay could be very inexpensive in contrast with comparable packages elsewhere. For New York State residents, tuition is $1,410 per course, or $8,460 per 12 months for college students taking the usual six programs. (The full price is similar if you happen to unfold your coursework out over extra years.) For comparability, tuition on the New Faculty for Social Analysis, which additionally presents an economics MA with a robust heterodox part, is $7,320 per three-credit course — about 5 occasions 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 12 months to qualify for in-state tuition.
At this second, it appears to me, the prospect to review economics in a program that’s each rigorous and engaged with radical politics, at an inexpensive public college within the coronary heart of New York, is one thing that many individuals can be excited by. The issue is, the nice majority of these individuals don’t know we’re right here. So I’m asking individuals to share this submit. Particularly, if you happen to train school college students, please think about 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 info. I’m at all times joyful to speak with anybody contemplating making use of; when you have any questions on this system, be at liberty to succeed in out to me at profjwmason@gmail.com.
Admission are open till the tip of July. The applying type is right here. And, as soon as extra, if you realize anybody who is likely to be — a school senior desirous about graduate college; an activist or skilled who needs a deeper data of economics — and who lives in New York or wish to, please ahead this to them.