Economics, as a field of study, offers a powerful lens through which to view the world. It can help us understand how markets, people, politics, and institutions interact, or sometimes fail to do so. However, it’s hard to deny that many bright and capable students find themselves disillusioned with the discipline after a few semesters of university-level economics courses. A common refrain among students who abandon economics is that they were never told why what they were learning matters.
As a master’s student in economics reflecting on my undergraduate experience, and now being confronted with the testimony of students I TA for, I realize that this lack of connection between the mathematical tools and their real-world significance was a major flaw in my education. This article seeks to explore why modern economics education may be losing so many promising minds by failing to convey the purpose behind the math and models we use.
The Problem: Missing the Forest for the Trees
From the very first micro and macroeconomics classes, students are thrust into a world of abstract models, equations, and calculus. We learn to optimize utility functions, solve demand curves, and apply calculus to production functions. While these are important skills, what is often missing is the context that makes these exercises feel meaningful. The educational focus on rote problem-solving, divorced from a broader understanding of why these tools matter, leaves students feeling lost.
For many, economics becomes a sterile mathematical exercise: take a derivative, apply it to a function, and calculate the marginal value. It’s a monotonous process that can drain the subject of its dynamism and relevance. What is rarely discussed is why calculus is a suitable tool for analyzing the economy in the first place. Why does differentiating utility functions or taking partial derivatives of cost functions help us better understand real-world economic behavior? Something that is somehow entirely skipped is that the utility and demand functions we work on are stand-ins for real humans and their subjective, cognitive appraisals.
Had I not spent hundreds of hours reading economics on my own before starting my degree, I might have found the subject just as dull and disconnected as many of my peers did. I knew the underlying beauty and relevance of what we were studying, but that understanding came from outside the classroom, not from the education system itself.
Math as a Tool to Understand Subjective Values
One of the most fascinating aspects of modern economics is its ability to translate subjective human values into objective, quantifiable data—namely, prices. In a vibrant, functioning market, a money commodity naturally rises to the surface, allowing for the conversion of subjective desires into numerals. Once we have prices, economists can use mathematical tools like calculus to perform operations on what are essentially disparate, subjective, and whimsical human preferences.
This, in itself, is a profound realization: the math we use is not an arbitrary tool; it is made possible by the existence of free markets and a relatively stable currency. Without markets, we wouldn’t have prices. Without prices, we couldn’t translate subjective values into something objective for calculus to work on. This simple but powerful idea could dramatically change the way students perceive economics from the very start of their education.
Yet, not once during my undergraduate studies was this connection made explicit. Instead, the math was presented as something to be memorized and applied, without any deeper discussion about why it worked or how it reflected the real-world phenomena we were supposed to be studying. The consequence? Students don’t just lose interest—they lose faith in the utility of economics itself.
The Discipline’s Shift Away from Its Roots
One of the reasons economics education has become so dry and disconnected from its real-world implications is that the field has, in many ways, run away from its roots. Economics, once referred to as the “dismal science,” often dealt with speculative ideas about human behavior, politics, and society. In an attempt to escape the ivory tower of speculation and political bias, modern economics has swung too far in the opposite direction. It has become overly concerned with being “scientific,” mathematical, and devoid of any normative claims. We have fallen into the same trap that Karl Marx did so long ago—physics envy. What we have gained by explicitly modeling our assumptions, we have lost by forgetting that this is a social science. Our objects of study are self-reflecting, introspective beings, and while calculus may work on prices, it does not work on the goals and ambitions that drive our behavior in markets.
This shift isn’t without merit. The discipline rightly sought to establish itself as more than just opinion-based conjecture, but the result is an economics education that often pretends that markets exist in a vacuum, disconnected from the political and social infrastructure that makes them possible.
A Simple Fix: A Call to Integrate Historical and Institutional Context
Here’s where a small but meaningful change could make a significant difference. We don’t need to overhaul the curriculum or introduce entire courses on political economy or the history of economic thought. A simple solution would be to devote just the first class of any existing micro or macro course to touch on the key milestones in economic thought and the institutional underpinnings of markets.
For instance, covering foundational ideas like the labor theory of value (LToV) and the marginal revolution would give students a historical perspective on how economic thought evolved. We could explore Paul Samuelson’s mathematical genius and his ability to translate Keynesian ideas into models that shaped modern macroeconomics. Additionally, a brief discussion about the political institutions necessary for markets—such as the rule of law, private property rights, enforceable contracts, and the peaceful transition of power—would help students see how economics is deeply connected to the social and political structures that exist (for some of us) all around us.
These aren’t lengthy topics that require an entire course, but they are key elements that make what we study as economists possible. By introducing these concepts early on, we provide students with a clearer understanding of the historical, intellectual, and institutional context of the subject. It would be enough to spark curiosity and foster an appreciation for the discipline as something grounded in both human history and modern institutions.
A Personal Realization: I Wasn’t Alone
For a long time, I assumed these beliefs and frustrations were personal shortcomings—that perhaps I simply wasn’t as mathematically gifted as others. I loved reading economics and felt passionate about the subject, but that enthusiasm didn’t always translate into great grades or an easy understanding of the coursework. I assumed that my feelings of resentment about the way I was being taught were due to me mistakenly thinking I was on the wrong side of the Dunning-Kruger curve.
However, since becoming a TA and speaking with many other bright students—some of whom have switched into economics from pure math degrees—I’ve realized that these concerns are far more widespread than I initially thought. These are students of unbelievable intelligence, with mathematical abilities far beyond my own, yet they share the same doubts and frustrations about the lack of connection between the math and the deeper meaning of economics.
The difference for me was that I had been exposed to great economists and writers outside of class, which helped power me through the more tedious aspects of my coursework. But many of these students didn’t have that same external exposure. They were left to grapple with the same sense of purposelessness I had felt, and some of them were seriously considering abandoning the field altogether.
The Cost of Losing Bright Minds
Many other academic disciplines proudly celebrate their innovators and historical icons, but in economics, it often feels like we’re supposed to pretend everything began 40 years ago when we discovered math, computers, and big data. This reduction of the field to a subset of mathematical exercises not only oversimplifies what economics can offer but also discourages many bright students from pursuing it further. After all, as Morris R. Cohen has remarked: “The notion that we can dismiss the views of all previous thinkers surely leaves no basis for the hope that our own work will prove of any value to others.”
Conversations with the next generation of economists—students whose intellect and potential could genuinely shape the future—have convinced me that this crisis is urgent. These students’ concerns mirror my own, and if we don’t address the disconnect between the tools we use and the reasons we use them, we risk losing not only individual talent but also the contributions these brilliant minds could have made to the field and the world.
Conclusion: The Need for a Holistic Economics Education
The solution isn’t to abandon math or quantitative rigor—far from it. Instead, we need to reintroduce the “why” into economics education. Students should be taught not just how to apply mathematical tools, but also why these tools are important and how they relate to the real-world phenomena they are studying. By doing so, we can help students see the value in what they are learning and retain more of the bright, talented individuals who might otherwise be lost to more engaging fields. Economics is a powerful tool for understanding the world, but without context, it risks becoming just another set of abstract problems in a textbook. As the ever-cogent Mises put it towards the end of his magnum opus Human Action: “Economics must not be relegated to classrooms and statistical offices and must not be left to esoteric circles. It is the philosophy of human life and action and concerns everybody and everything.”
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