The recent election victories of socialist and progressive candidates in New York, Michigan and Minnesota, along with Democratic Socialist Francesca Hong’s narrow loss in Wisconsin, highlight the changing political and economic attitudes of a growing segment of Americans. Perhaps most surprising is the constituency driving this movement: younger, college-educated voters.
Recent analysis shows support for Democratic Socialist candidates particularly strong among highly educated younger voters. By contrast, support among working-class voters without a college degree is weaker, despite these candidates’ emphasis on policies intended to benefit working-class households.
There is no shortage of explanations for the recent rise in support for socialism among young college graduates. Conservatives emphasize ideological capture within universities. Progressives emphasize housing affordability and economic insecurity. Both likely play a role, but these results raise a more fundamental issue. Higher education has spent decades encouraging students to engage in political and economic debates without first ensuring that they possess the foundational knowledge to adequately evaluate those debates. Hence, before students decide what they believe about capitalism and socialism or vote to reform America’s political and economic systems, they should first understand how our systems actually work.
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One promising response has been the emergence of schools devoted to civic education. These schools seek to restore serious study of history, constitutional government, economics and the traditions of self-government to undergraduate education. Their main purpose is not to produce historians, political scientists, philosophers or economists. Rather, they seek to prepare graduates for lives of informed citizenship and responsible leadership. Graduates will go into numerous fields, including business, medicine, law and politics. Regardless of their career choices, these students will be equipped to help shape America’s future.
The renewal of civic education reflects a broader question confronting higher education as a whole: What knowledge should every educated citizen possess?
Among these new schools, the School of Civic Leadership at the University of Texas at Austin illustrates one approach. As my dean, Justin Dyer, has argued, civic education should be pre-partisan: “Before we can develop a reasonable outlook on the policy issues of the day, we must first acquire knowledge of the character and basis of the political institutions we have inherited and must now steward as Americans. Civic education gives us this knowledge and in so doing prepares us for liberty.”
This vision rests on three pillars: history, constitutionalism and economics. History teaches students how the ideas and events that came before us shaped the American experiment. Constitutionalism teaches students how our institutions operate in a democratic republic. Economics teaches students how incentives, markets and institutions shape prosperity and public policy. Together, these three disciplines provide students with the intellectual foundation necessary to understand and steward our country, regardless of the profession they ultimately pursue.
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In practice, however, economics has often occupied a less prominent place in civic education compared to history and constitutional government.
At its best, economic reasoning provides a pre-partisan framework for analyzing public policy. When applied properly, economic analysis does not begin with a predetermined policy outcome. Rather, it begins by examining costs, benefits, incentives and unintended consequences.
Notably, economic analysis seeks to examine two important questions related to public policy: causality and efficiency. Causality tells us which policies achieve a desired outcome. Efficiency asks how to achieve that outcome at the lowest cost to society.
Importantly, when taught correctly, economics doesn’t tell students how to vote or which candidates to support. Rather, it provides a common analytical framework to teach students how to evaluate competing claims and consider tradeoffs. That shared framework, not agreement on political outcomes, is what makes economics uniquely suited to a pre-partisan civic education.
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Every citizen can vote or borrow money, and all of us have to pay taxes. And we have to live with the consequences of the economic policies enacted by our elected officials. Yet among students who began college in 2012, only about one-quarter received any college-level economics instruction. Citizens cannot meaningfully participate in those debates without first understanding basic economic principles. A civic education that omits economic reasoning is incomplete.
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If one purpose of higher education is to prepare graduates for the responsibilities of citizenship, then economics cannot remain peripheral. The resurgence of civic education has rightly restored emphasis on the study of America’s history and constitutional systems.
However, we must also ensure every graduate understands the economic system that has helped make America the most prosperous nation in human history. Before Americans vote to reform or replace our economic and political institutions, they must first understand how those institutions actually work.
