I get, oh, a dozen or so letters each semester from potential students such as this one, see his letter below. On the next page appears the first draft of a form letter I intend to send out in response to such letters in future. Please vet this for me. I’d greatly appreciate it. Have I left anyone out? Can you see any way I can improve this letter? Are there other universities which have two or more professors who are Austrian economists that I have not mentioned?
Hello Dr. Block,
I am a 20 year old libertarian who is currently looking at college options.
My major will be economics, and I will most likely minor in english.
For the past several years I’ve been a follower of the Austrian School of
Economics, and I’d like to attend a school that teaches economics from that
perspective. Do you have a list of colleges that teach Austrian Economics?
Thank you so much for your time!
HD
Dear HD:
Wherever you go, I suggest you not minor in English literature. I suggest, instead, math, or stats, or poli sci or history.
I regard Grove City College and Loyola University New Orleans as the best two places in the U.S., heck, on the entire planet, for young people interested in an Austro libertarian undergraduate education, where cultural Marxism will not be shoved down their throats. Or, rather, where this will be minimized, compared to other colleges. Both are both very good private religious schools. I think any young person interested in this perspective would have a great undergraduate education at either of them. I also highly recommend Ferris State University.
However, as a member of the faculty of Loyola, let me outline the advantages, as I see them, for my own school.
1. We have more Austrian economists on our faculty than either of them do on theirs. At Grove, the only Austrian economists are Jeff Herbener and Shawn Ritenour. At Ferris, there are only Mark Brandly, Dave Hebert and Jenny Dirmeyer. At Loyola, in addition to me, there are Bill Barnett, Stuart Wood and Leo Krasnozhon. Plus, my economics department colleague John Levendis is sympathetic and open to these views, although not entirely convinced of them.
2. Our faculty has more publications than either of them in both Austrian and non Austrian journals, certainly in total, but, also, I’m pretty sure, per capita. (This is a traditional way of comparing faculties.) I suggest any prospective student for any university google their potential professors; read some of their publications, and listen to some of their speeches, to see with which set of them you will likely feel more comfortable.
3. We absolutely kick their butts in terms of number of professors and number of students who regularly attend Mises Institute events. Typically, some 3-5 professors, and over a dozen students, can be found at the AERC, the Summit, the Mises University. Why is this important? In indicates not only that there are more Austro libertarian professors at Loyola than Grove City, or Ferris State but more students of this persuasion. And why, in turn, is that important? One of the chief determinants of happiness at a university is the number of friends made by a newcomer. And friends, usually, share a political economic philosophy. If there are more such students at Loyola, then the chances are that a new freshman will be able to link up with them.
4. Four of my former Loyola students now have faculty jobs in economics departments, and some half dozen others are now in graduate schools earning their PhDs in economics. At present, there are another dozen undergraduate students who are planning such careers. I have no information on Grove City or Ferris State, but, it is unlikely it can match us in this regard. Also, there are three of my former students at Holy Cross College who are now economics professors. So, if this is your goal, you might also take this into consideration.
Here is a list of my former Loyola undergraduate students who have earned PhDs in economics from G. Mason (and where they are now teaching): Dan D’Amico (Brown); Emily Schaeffer Skarbeck (King’s College London), Nick Snow (Kenyon College), Jenny Dirmeyer (Ferris State).
From when I was a professor at Holy Cross: Ed Stringham (Trinity University), Andy Young (West Virginia University), Billy Kosteas (Cleveland State University)
Loyola students of mine who are now in the midst of the Mason PhD program are Chris Fleming, Jimmy Trinchard, Jonathan Lingenfelter. At Texas Tech University: Taylor Smith, Pedro Benitez. Duke: Rachel Sayers. UC Irvine: Pat Testa
In addition to checking out your future professors, you might also ask their former students what it was like to study with these professors as undergraduates. Here are the e mail addresses for former students of mine (tba of no objections):
Daniel D’Amico:
Jenny Dirmeyer:
Chris Fleming:
Billy Kosteas:
Jonathan Lingenfelter:
Rachel Sayers:
Emily Schaeffer Skarbeck:
Taylor Smith:
Nick Snow:
Ed Stringham:
Pat Testa:
Jimmy Trinchard:
Andy Young:
5. At Loyola we have regularly scheduled Austrian – libertarian seminars (twice a month), and economics club meetings (also twice monthly) where free market related topics are discussed. Both students and faculty attend. Our Austro-libertarian seminar is regularly attended also by faculty at other universities. Thus, in addition to classes taken with sympathetic professors, there are opportunities to interact with them and like-minded students pretty much on a weekly basis.
6. Although libertarianism and Austrianism are in different universes of discourse, students interested in the latter are often interested in the former. In this regard, we have several other professors at Loyola, apart from those already mentioned, who are very appreciative of the free enterprise, private property, limited government philosophy: Nick Capaldi in business ethics, Jim Viator and David Gruning in law, Ron Christner in finance; there is even a chemistry professor who can be described in this way: Bill Walkenhorst, who regularly attends our seminars. Let anyone else top that.
7. Loyola has a program of publishing undergraduate student’s term papers in refereed journals. A list can be provided upon request. There are over 60 such publications in our program. I doubt that this can be matched, even closely, at any other university.
To be fair, I must acknowledge that George Mason has more Austro libertarians than either Grove City or Loyola University New Orleans. However, many of the Mason Austro libertarians teach at the graduate level, not only the undergraduate. In any case, Mason (along with Texas Tech, see below) is the only University granting a Ph.D. in economics that has any Austro libertarians on staff in the U.S. So, if a student is thinking of going to Mason for grad school, it would be rather limiting to go there for an undergraduate degree as well.
While I am on this fairness kick, I must acknowledge that the Austro libertarian professors at Loyola University New Orleans are in the distinct minority. There are only about a dozen of us, in a faculty of several hundred. As at most other universities, faculty members of the humanities and other social science departments are not at all sympathetic to classical liberalism, laissez faire capitalism. However, very likely, the proportion of free market oriented professors at Loyola New Orleans is higher than at virtually any other university.
Fairness also requires me to acknowledge that there are two other universities in play (I define an “Austrian friendly” university as having at least two professors who espouse this perspective): they are Texas Tech (PhD granting) and Troy Universities (offers a masters’ program in economics). The “problem” with both of them is that if a student goes there, and then takes an advanced degree at either of them, or at Mason, he will limited by having the same set of professors for both graduate and undergraduate studies. Loyola, Grove and Ferris are thus to be preferred on this ground. However, I must say that I highly recommend Mason, Texas Tech and Troy to my students at Loyola who want to go on for graduate degrees in economics.
I am copying on this my contacts at all universities mentioned above. I do so, one, to be fair, two, so that potential students can easily follow up with any of us, and three to ask these contacts of mine to notify me if I have put my foot (well, word processor) wrong in any of this. If so, colleagues, please correct me.
Ferris: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] (Mark Brandly, Jenny Dirmeyer, David Hebert)
Loyola: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; lakrasno; @loyno.edu (Walter Block, Bill Barnett, John Levendis, Stuart Wood, Leo Krasnozhon)
George Mason: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] (Peter Boettke, Richard Wagner, Virgil Storr)
Grove City: [email protected]; [email protected]; (Jeff Herbener, Shawn Ritenour)
Texas Tech: [email protected]; (Ben Powell)
Troy: [email protected]; [email protected] (Malavika Nair, G. Manish)
I just thought of one more thing, in my attempt to be fair. I’m now 73 years old. I’ve been in this game since around 1970, for 45 years. Therefore, I’m likely to have had many more former students than my younger competitors at some of these other schools. This long list of former students of mine who are now in grad school, occupying university posts, in unlikely to be matched by excellent professors at other schools. But, this, perhaps, is merely a result of the number of decades I’ve been in the business, not of any special merit on my part. So, the prospective student will have to take that into account.
7:34 pm on June 26, 2015
