Just a clarifying post. It has been remarked recently both in our comments section and over at the Mises Blog that somehow I have made negative and petty remarks about alternative graduate programs in Austrian economics and also undergraduate programs in economics. THIS IS NOT TRUE TO THE BEST OF MY KNOWLEDGE AND IF I HAVE MADE SUCH REMARKS IN AN UNJUSTIFIED AND UNFAIR MANNER I APOLOGIZE. In fact, if you ask any of the students I have recruited to study with me over the years at GMU, they will tell you that I often provide them with information on the alternative programs, usually stress the strengths of those programs and in fact encourage students to study deeply the alternative choices they are making. I also tell students they should go to the best school that will let them in provided they get full funding. Going to graduate school is in my opinion very similar to going to play D1 college athletics. We read stories of the exceptional case of a walk-on every now and then, but the exception proves the rule. Unless you are fully funded by the school, the professors will not pay as much attention to you and without the professors attentions it is very difficult to compete for scientific endorsement and academic placement.
I graduated from Grove City College, and just two years ago I received the Alumni Achievement Award from the school. I love Grove City College, what the school did for me, what I learned from my professors there --- especially Hans Sennholz, and what the school continues to stand for. So no petty remarks toward that school will be heard by me. It is the best undergraduate school in the world as far as I am concerned -- of course I am biased in that regard!
Some of the best students I have ever had as a teacher went to Hillsdale College. So I love Hillsdale College as well and what it stands for. In fact, right now I have three former students on the faculty at Hillsdale. So no petty remarks about Hillsdale will be heard from me. It is the second best undergraduate school in the world --- the battle between GCC and Hillsdale is an ongoing one between Pete L and myself, I will not fault Pete L for his Hillsdale education! Beloit College under the amazing academic entrepreneurship of Emily Chamlee-Wright has just hired Scott Beaulier and Josh Hall and thus has moved into a top place to study economics. And I have benefited greatly from my interaction with Walter Block's students from Loyola University of New Orleans, so that program has to be in my top 5 undergraduate schools. Hampden Sydney is my other favorite with Tony Carilli and Gregory Dempster. Tony is a master teacher, such a good teacher that I would entrust him with my son's teaching them economics any day of the week. So as you can tell, I am biased in favor of small liberal arts colleges rather than large universities, and I believe strongly in students building strong intellectual personal relationships with professors that only the small college experience will afford.
As for European alternatives, I am all in favor of them. I have been a visiting professor at LSE (twice), Stockholm School of Economics, Max Planck Institute, and the Russian Academy of Sciences. I have greatly enjoyed my time in Europe and understand why some students will want to pursue their education there for cultural reasons. I have served on 3 dissertations in France, 1 in Guatemala and 1 in Sweden, and am in the midst of preparing for a defense in England right in the next month. What I have told students, is that (a) US PhD programs have more marketability, and (b) that if you go to Europe the same rules apply -- go to the best school that will pay your full way. So LSE is better than most programs in terms of reputation. Oxford and Cambridge are great (I've lectured at both and was absolutely thrilled with the experience --- especially the opportunity I had last fall to lecture to Tony Lawson's Critical Realist group in Cambridge). But don't expect to have as many academic opportunities if you go to a program outside of the very top places. That is not meant to imply any disrespect, as students of Jesus Huerta de Soto from Spain, or Viktor Vanberg of Germany can tell you, I think the world of these individuals and their programs and have sponsored many visiting students to GMU over my years here.
So again, to the best of my knowledge, I do not mock European alternatives.
There are many alternatives to GMU -- Florida State, Clemson, West Viriginia, Suffolk University (where Ben Powell is moving to), Claremont, New York University, Stanford (Poliical Science), LSE (STICERD), University of Paris I (ATOM), University of Aix-en-Provence, Freiburg, Kassel, and Efurt in Germany, UFM in Guatemala, ESADE in Argentina, etc. I am sure I am missing some (but see Walter Block's more comprehensive list). However, I do think you should also examine the "marketability" of such degrees in terms of job placement, etc. You can go to a variety of schools to get a great education, but the academic job market is more akin to a guild system than a idealized free market in labor. Don't expect to get a job at a school higher ranked than the one you graduate from; don't expect to get a job at a school that wouldn't hire your dissertation advisor if given that opportunity; don't expect to even be looked at unless you have publications. My advice to gradaute students is very plain --- PhD in hand + publications in refereed journals + high teaching evaluations - your lunch tax index (diffculty of personality) = job prospects. If you are ABD, no publications, bad teaching evaluations, and unforunately possess an obnoxious personality, then your prospects of landing a job are rather slim. Don't need to reference discrimination against "Austrian economics" to explain the "no academic job" result.
I have been very fortunate in my own academic career. I went to GCC where I had great teachers in philosphy, politics and economics and they influenced me so much as to change my career path, I went to GMU where I had an unbelievable educational experience working with Don Lavoie and studying with Kenneth Boulding, James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, and Viktor Vanberg. Other professors such as Karen Vaughn, Dwight Lee, Bob Tollison and Michael Alexeev were very influential on me as well. I received a first-rate education at GMU and my timing was perfect with Buchanan winning the Nobel in 1986. Then I was able to move to NYU as an assistant professor from 1990-1998 and work closely with Israel Kirzner and Mario Rizzo. And stuck inside of that time period, I was able to spend a year at Stanford's Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace and interact personally with such major figures of 20th century thought as Milton and Rose Friedman, Gary Becker, Robert Conquest, and even Edward Teller (who my fellowship was actually named after!). Becker won the Nobel that year and was in residence at Hoover for a large part of that year. And then I return to GMU in 1998, and we hire Vernon Smith shortly after. Smith is one of the most intellectual exciting individuals I've ever been around and is a life-long learner. He wins the Nobel in 2002, and GMU continues to hire first rate economists and political economists. Just this year we hired John Nye, Werner Troesken, and Gary Richardson to build one of the great cohorts of economic history in the world. Previously we had hired Larry Iannaccone and Dan Klein. This semester both Mario Rizzo and Bill Easterly are teaching courses in our PhD program as visiting professors --- Rizzo's class is Ethics and Economics while Easterly's is on Foreign Aid and Development. And now we have also hired Pete Leeson to join the faculty as of Fall 2007. So while I am biased, I do think it would be hard for anyone to give an example of a better place for anyone to study who cares about economics, who cares about political economy, who is interested in free market economics, and who is interested in Austrian economics. Where else can you take 2 PhD level courses in Austrian Economics where Human Action is the required text? Where else can you take PhD level courses that focus on classical liberal texts such as Hayek's The Constitution of Liberty and Murray Rothbard's For a New Liberty? Where else can you get this sort of education?
In the comment section of the blog it seems as if some are arguing that all we do here at GMU is some sort of loose form of public choice economics. The reality is that we have a variety of active research programs going on at GMU and also vigorous debate culture among the faculty and students, including researchers in law and economics, history of thought, public choice, experimental economics, political economy as well as industrial organization, public finance, monetary economics, etc. One of the ongoing research programs at GMU is Austrian Economics. We have professors working in Austrian economics, we offer a structured curriculum in Austrian economics, we offer fellowships for students in Austrian Economics, we have an Israel Kirzner Award for the Outstanding Dissertation in Austrian Economics, we have the Review of Austrian Economics, and we have a weekly research seminar in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) that has had everyone from Mario Rizzo and Lawrence White to Joe Salerno and Walter Block present seminars in over the years. And we have the most dedicated and talented young Austrian students in the world as evidenced by their publications, their placement, their on-going presence at professional societies, etc. so early in their careers.
It is extremely competitive to get into the group that is admitted let alone funded at GMU. Roughly you need a 3.6 GPA, a 760 GRE Quantitative, and 660 GRE Verbal and strong letters of recommendation. If you are below those objective measures, then you will need special intervention to get over the hump. But if you meet those minimum standards and you have a strong work ethic, then the opportunities here are phenomenal and they are going to be getting even more so over the next few years as we increase our funding for graduate students. In recent years GMU's placement record has been strong as well --- UC Santa Cruz, U of Penn, West Virginia University are 3 placements from the class of 2005.
So yes their are alternatives to GMU, just as their are alternative teams to the NY Yankees in MLB. Some years the pitching staff is getting old, or the hitters might slip a bit, but as with the Yankees, GMU just reloads its talent pool. That is how you build a PhD program that can boast of 2 Nobel Prizes. Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Derek Jeter represent Yankee greatness. Jim Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, Bob Tollison, Richard Wagner, Don Lavoie, Walter Williams, Vernon Smith, Tyler Cowen, etc. represent GMU's continuity of greatness over a quarter century of graduate level research and economic education. If that sounds over-confident, I do apologize. But you have to realize that "Tradition Never Graduates", and GMU has a tradition of excellence that lives on in the work being done here and also in the work done by our graduates at various universities across the world .