The article I am quoting from below merely scratches the surface when it comes to what is missing in the classroom (and doesn’t get it exactly right by saying that students “learn plenty of models”; actually they learn plenty of neoclassical models only). As the article correctly points out, though, students mostly don’t go on to become economists. In fact, most don’t even major in economics. Millions of unsuspecting undergrads everywhere, therefore, are stuck with the residue of principles courses taught like boilerplate. This leaves a strictly neoclassical imprint on their brains (and the article thinks that ethics training might help).

Back to my point about “plenty of models,” that is, the lack of non-neoclassical models. Students typically don’t get exposed to plenty (or any) models of ecological economics, Marxian economics, post-Keynesian, etc. and the important political perspectives (and ethics, philospohy) that go with these alt-paradigms of Econ thought. I find it interesting that a financial news publisher (Bloomberg) is writing about this, though. Something must be seriously wrong when business press is saying economics education is deficient.

UVM’s economics department, meanwhile, does not teach history of economic thought anymore (that was my most popular course), and no history of capitalism courses (actually taught in most history departments, but not Econ departments). For the record, I taught a history of financial capitalism as an Honors College course at UVM, but no longer (I am kicked out). As an aside, when the brilliant Marxian economic historian and loved UVM full professor, Ross Thomson, died in 2015, they did not replace him with an economic historian. They replaced him with a bright, young neoclassical economist with no training in economics history or alternative economics. That aside, this article is right on the money when it comes to the nature of most Econ departments, including increasingly UVM’s Econ department, with statements like “At best, they [students] absorb a few ideas from offhand comments by their professors [some liberals and some conservatives]”.

But structuring curriculum to include serious training in the many other competing schools of thought (Marxian, Post-Keynesian, Austrian, etc.), simply is not done at UVM, unlike places such as John Jay College (“comprehensive and rigorous education in applied, pluralist economics… Students at John Jay will study the history of economics and economic thought…”) or New School University. And at a few other centers of higher learning not beholden to pro-business, standard (neoclassical) principles courses. Here is the link to the full story: Econ Majors Graduate with Huge Knowledge Gap, which is excerpted below: