Educators and economists tell us all the reasons college enrollment has been dropping, especially for men, and how to stop the bleeding. (Part 3 of our series from 2022, “Freakonomics Radio Goes Back to School.”)

• SOURCES:
  • Zachary Bleemer, assistant professor of economics at Princeton University and faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
  • D'Wayne Edwards, founder and President of Pensole Lewis College.
  • Catharine Hill, former president of Vassar College; trustee at Yale University; and managing director at Ithaka S+R.
  • Pano Kanelos, founding president of the University of Austin.
  • Amalia Miller, professor of economics at the University of Virginia.
  • Donald Ruff, president and C.E.O. of the Eagle Academy Foundation.
  • Morton Schapiro, professor of economics and former president of Northwestern University.
  • Ruth Simmons, former president of Smith College, Brown University, and Prairie View A&M University.
  • Miguel Urquiola, professor of economics at Columbia University.

• RESOURCES:
  • "What Gay Men’s Stunning Success Might Teach Us About the Academic Gender Gap," by Joel Mittleman (The Washington Post, 2022).
  • "We Can't Wait for Universities to Fix Themselves. So We're Starting a New One," by Pano Kanelos (Common Sense, 2021).
  • "Academic Freedom in Crisis: Punishment, Political Discrimination, and Self-Censorship," by Eric Kaufmann (Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, 2021).
  • “A Generation of American Men Give Up on College: ‘I Just Feel Lost’,” by Douglas Belkin (The Wall Street Journal, 2021).
  • "Community Colleges and Upward Mobility," by Jack Mountjoy (NBER Working Paper, 2021).
  • "Elite Schools and Opting In: Effects of College Selectivity on Career and Family Outcomes," by Suqin Ge, Elliott Isaac, and Amalia Miller (NBER Working Paper, 2019).
  • "Leaving Boys Behind: Gender Disparities in High Academic Achievement," by Nicole M. Fortin, Philip Oreopoulos, and Shelley Phipps (NBER Working Paper, 2013).

• EXTRAS:
  • "Freakonomics Radio Goes Back to School," series by Freakonomics Radio (2024).
  • “'If We’re All in It for Ourselves, Who Are We?'” by Freakonomics Radio (2024).

Stephen Dubner appears as a guest on Fail Better, a new podcast hosted by David Duchovny. The two of them trade stories about failure, and ponder the lessons that success could never teach.

• SOURCES:
  • David Duchovny, actor, director, writer, and musician.

• RESOURCES:
  • "Martin Seligman and the Rise of Positive Psychology," by Peter Gibbon (Humanities, 2020).
  • "Rick Reilly: ‘Donald Trump Will Cheat You on the Golf Course and Then Buy You Lunch,'" by Donald McRae (The Guardian, 2019).
  • "How The X-Files Invented Modern Television," by Emily St. James (Vox, 2018).
  • "Happiness & the Gorilla," by Scott Galloway (No Mercy/No Malice, 2018).

• EXTRAS:
  • Fail Better with David Duchovny, podcast by Lemonada Media (2024).
  • "How to Succeed at Failing," series by Freakonomics Radio (2023).
  • "Annie Duke Thinks You Should Quit," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2022).
  • "The Upside of Quitting," by Freakonomics Radio (2011).

America’s top colleges are facing record demand. So why don’t they increase supply? (Part 2 of our series from 2022, “Freakonomics Radio Goes Back to School.”)

• SOURCES:
  • Peter Blair, professor of education at Harvard University and faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
  • Zachary Bleemer, assistant professor of economics at Princeton University and faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
  • Amalia Miller, professor of economics at the University of Virginia.
  • Morton Schapiro, professor of economics and former president of Northwestern University.
  • Miguel Urquiola, professor of economics at Columbia University.

• RESOURCES:
  • “Elite Schools and Opting In: Effects of College Selectivity on Career and Family Outcomes,” by Suqin Ge, Elliott Isaac, and Amalia Miller (Journal of Labor Economics, 2022).
  • “Why Don’t Elite Colleges Expand Supply?” by Peter Q. Blair & Kent Smetters (NBER Working Paper, 2021).
  • “Lori Loughlin Pleads Guilty via Zoom in College Admissions Case,” by Kate Taylor (The New York Times, 2020).
  • Markets, Minds, and Money: Why America Leads the World in University Research, by Miguel Urquiola (2020).
  • “To Cheat and Lie in L.A.: How the College-Admissions Scandal Ensnared the Richest Families in Southern California,” by Evgenia Peretz (Vanity Fair, 2019).
  • The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money, by Bryan Caplan (2018).
  • “The World Might Be Better Off Without College for Everyone,” by Bryan Caplan (The Atlantic, 2018).
  • “Are Tenure Track Professors Better Teachers?” by David N. Figlio, Morton O. Schapiro, and Kevin B. Soter (NBER Working Paper, 2013).
  • “Estimating the Payoff to Attending a More Selective College: An Application of Selection on Observables and Unobservables,” by Stacy Berg Dale and Alan Krueger (NBER Working Paper, 1999).
  • "Report on the University’s Role in Political and Social Action," by the Kalven Committee (1967).

• EXTRAS:
  • "What Exactly Is College For? (Update)," by Freakonomics Radio (2024).

We think of them as intellectual enclaves and the surest route to a better life. But U.S. colleges also operate like firms, trying to differentiate their products to win market share and prestige points. In the first episode of a special series originally published in 2022, we ask what our chaotic system gets right — and wrong. (Part 1 of “Freakonomics Radio Goes Back to School.”)

• SOURCES:
  • Peter Blair, faculty research Fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research and professor of education at Harvard University.
  • Catharine Hill, former president of Vassar College; trustee at Yale University; and managing director at Ithaka S+R.
  • Morton Schapiro, professor of economics and former president of Northwestern University.
  • Ruth Simmons, former president of Smith College, Brown University, and Prairie View A&M University.
  • Miguel Urquiola, professor of economics at Columbia University.

• RESOURCES:
  • "Progressivity of Pricing at U.S. Public Universities," by Emily E. Cook and Sarah Turner (NBER Working Paper, 2022).
  • "Community Colleges and Upward Mobility," by Jack Mountjoy (NBER Working Paper, 2021).
  • "How HBCUs Can Accelerate Black Economic Mobility," (McKinsey & Company, 2021).
  • Markets, Minds, and Money: Why America Leads the World in University Research, by Miguel Urquiola (2021).
  • "Mobility Report Cards: The Role of Colleges in Intergenerational Mobility," by Raj Chetty, John N. Friedman, Emmanuel Saez, Nicholas Turner, and Danny Yagan (NBER Working Paper, 2017).

• EXTRAS:
  • "'If We’re All in It for Ourselves, Who Are We?'" by Freakonomics Radio (2024).
  • "'A Low Moment in Higher Education,'" by Freakonomics Radio (2024).
  • "The $1.5 Trillion Question: How to Fix Student-Loan Debt?" by Freakonomics Radio (2019).
  • "Why Larry Summers Is the Economist Everyone Hates to Love," by Freakonomics Radio (2017).

There are a lot of factors that go into greatness, many of which are not obvious. As the Olympics come to a close, we revisit a 2018 episode in which top athletes from a variety of sports tell us how they made it, and what they sacrificed.

• SOURCES:
  • Lance Armstrong, former professional cyclist.
  • David Canton, director of African American studies and professor of history at the University of Florida.
  • David Epstein, science journalist and author.
  • Domonique Foxworth, former professional football player.
  • Justin Humphries, former professional baseball player.
  • Andre Ingram, professional basketball player.
  • Shawn Johnson, former professional gymnast and Olympian.
  • Steve Levitt, professor of economics at the University of Chicago.
  • Simone Manuel, professional swimmer and Olympian.
  • Brandon McCarthy, former professional baseball player.
  • Mike McGlinchey, offensive tackle for the Denver Broncos.
  • Daryl Morey, president of basketball operations of the Philadelphia 76ers.
  • Lauren Murphy, professional mixed martial artist.
  • Kim Ng, advisor with Athletes Unlimited Pro Softball, former general manager of the Miami Marlins.
  • JJ Redick, head coach for the Los Angeles Lakers.
  • Mikaela Shiffrin, professional alpine ski racer and Olympian.
  • Mark Teixeira, former professional baseball player.
  • Sudhir Venkatesh, professor of sociology at Columbia University.
  • Kerri Walsh-Jennings, professional beach volleyball player and Olympian.

• RESOURCES:
  • "Compromising Talent: Issues in Identifying and Selecting Talent in Sport," by Joseph Baker, Jörg Schorer, and Nick Wattie (Quest, 2017).
  • "Practice and Play in the Development of German Top-Level Professional Football Players," by Manuel Hornig, Friedhelm Aust, and Arne Güllich (European Journal of Sport Science, 2016).
  • The Sports Gene, by David Epstein (2013).
  • "The Effect of Deliberate Play on Tactical Performance in Basketball," by Pablo Greco, Daniel Memmert, and Juan Carlos Pérez Morales (Perceptual and Motor Skills, 2010).

• EXTRAS:
  • "The Hidden Side of Sports," series by Freakonomics Radio (2018).
  • “How to Become Great at Just About Anything” Freakonomics Radio (2016).

Tania Tetlow, a former federal prosecutor and now the president of Fordham University, thinks the modern campus could use a dose of old-fashioned values.

• SOURCE:
  • Tania Tetlow, president of Fordham University.

• RESOURCES:
  • "Not a Priest, Not a Man, but Ready to Run Fordham," by David Waldstein (The New York Times, 2024).
  • "Tech Glitch Upends Financial Aid for About a Million Students," by Oyin Adedoyin and Melissa Korn (The Wall Street Journal, 2024).
  • "Where Protesters on U.S. Campuses Have Been Arrested or Detained," by The New York Times (The New York Times, 2024).
  • "15 Arrested as NYPD Clears Protester Encampment at Fordham's Lincoln Center Campus," (NBC News, 2024).
  • "Inside the Week That Shook Columbia University," by Nicholas Fandos and Sharon Otterman (The New York Times, 2024).
  • "Address of his Holiness Pope Francis to the Members of the Blanquerna — Universitat Ramón Llull Foundation, Barcelona," by Pope Francis (The Holy See Press Office Bulletin, 2024).
  • "Why Don’t Elite Colleges Expand Supply?" by Peter Q. Blair and Kent Smetters (NBER Working Paper, 2021).

• EXTRAS:
  • "Freakonomics Radio Goes Back to School," series by Freakonomics Radio (2022).

It’s not oil or water or plutonium — it’s human hours. We've got an idea for putting them to use, and for building a more human-centered economy. But we need your help.

• SOURCES:
  • Nathan Dietz, research director at the Do Good Institute at the University of Maryland.
  • Al Roth, professor of economics at Stanford University.
  • Krista Wyatt, C.E.O. of Timebanks.org.
  • Andrew Yang, co-chair of the Forward Party and former U.S. presidential candidate.

• RESOURCES:
  • "The Employment Effects of a Guaranteed Income: Experimental Evidence from Two U.S. States," by Eva Vivalt, Elizabeth Rhodes, Alexander W. Bartik, David E. Broockman, and Sarah Miller (NBER Working Paper, 2024).
  • "Where Are America's Volunteers," by Nathan Dietz and Robert T. Grimm Jr. (Do Good Institute, 2018).
  • "Believe in People," talk by Edgar Cahn at TEDxAshokaU (2010).
  • The Pencil, by Allan Ahlberg (2008).
  • No More Throw-Away People: The Co-Production Imperative, by Edgar S. Cahn (2000).
  • Time Dollars: The New Currency That Enables Americans to Turn Their Hidden Resource-Time-Into Personal Security and Community Renewal, by Edgar S. Cahn and Jonathan Rowe (1992).

• EXTRAS:
  • "Why Don’t We Have Better Candidates for President?" by Freakonomics Radio (2024).
  • “Andrew Yang Is Not Giving Up on Politics — or the U.S. — Yet,” by People I (Mostly) Admire (2021).
  • “The Future of New York City Is in Question. Could Andrew Yang Be the Answer?” by Freakonomics Radio (2021).
  • “Why Is This Man Running for President? (Update),” by Freakonomics Radio (2019).
  • "Make Me a Match," by Freakonomics Radio (2015).

A new proposal from the Biden administration calls for a nationwide cap on rent increases. Economists think that’s a terrible idea. We revisit a 2019 episode to hear why.

• SOURCES:
  • Tommy Andersson, professor of economics at Lund University.
  • Vicki Been, professor of law at New York University and former deputy mayor for housing and economic development in New York City.
  • Rebecca Diamond, professor of economics at Stanford Graduate School of Business.
  • David Eisenbach, history lecturer at the Manhattan School of Music and Columbia University.
  • Ed Glaeser, professor of economics at Harvard University.

• RESOURCES:
  • "The State of the Nation's Housing 2024," by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University (2024).
  • “The Effects of Rent Control Expansion on Tenants, Landlords, and Inequality: Evidence from San Francisco,” by Rebecca Diamond, Tim McQuade, and Franklin Qian (American Economic Review, 2019).
  • “Housing Market Spillovers: Evidence from the End of Rent Control in Cambridge, Massachusetts,” by David H. Autor, Christopher J. Palmer, and Parang A. Pathak (Journal of Political Economy, 2014).
  • “An Econometric Analysis of Rent Control,” by Edgar O. Olsen (Journal of Political Economy, 1972).
  • Roofs or Ceilings?: The Current Housing Problem, by Milton Friedman and George J. Stigler (1946).