Final week, the Lease Tips Board voted for a freeze on the hire for New York Metropolis’s a million rent-regulated flats, fulfilling one among Mayor Mamdani’s defining marketing campaign guarantees.
There was loads of dialogue of the choice, each supportive and essential. However there’s one side of it, of specific curiosity to me, that has not been talked about: Two out of the mayor’s six appointees to the board are latest graduates of the John Jay MA program in economics, the place I train.
I’m very happy with Sina Sinai and Lauren Melodia, who I do know fastidiously studied the proof and regarded the total vary of choices earlier than voting for the freeze. Lauren can also be doing vital work because the Director of Financial and Fiscal Coverage on the Middle for New York Metropolis Affairs, the place she is producing an excessive amount of useful analysis, most just lately on working situations in childcare. She’s just lately been joined by David Lee, one other John Jay graduate, who previously labored as Legislative Director for New York Assemblymember Ron Kim and is now writing about fiscal coverage on the Middle.
In the meantime on the hire regulation entrance, Anisha Steephen, a present pupil at John Jay, simply launched a serious report from the Roosevelt Institute on hire regulation as monetary regulation, which I hope to be writing extra about quickly.
That is what college students from the John Jay economics program do. For a small program that’s existed for lower than ten years, we’ve got a powerful variety of college students out on this planet contributing to progressive political tasks.
Additionally within the housing house, take into account Paul Williams. After ending his MA with us a number of years in the past, he established the Middle for Public Enterprise, the place he now has a dozen workers, and has performed as a lot as anybody to make the case that native authorities is usually a main investor in housing, in addition to in power and different areas. It is a essential a part of the both-and strategy — increase provide and defend tenants — that defines the Mamdani agenda on housing.
Different present and former John Jay MA college students embrace coverage workers for socialist elected officers like State Senator Julia Salazar and former Consultant Jamaal Bowman; the legislative director for the UAW; the chief of workers for former New York Metropolis Councilmember Carlina Rivera and State Senator Kristen Gonzalez; and analysts and researchers at numerous authorities businesses, together with a number of on the Bureau of labor Statistics. Journalists like Aída Chavez (of The Intercept and The Nation) and Kate Aronoff (of The New Republic, and writer of A Planet to Win: Why We Want a Inexperienced New Deal) have been additionally college students right here. Jack Gross, founding father of the excellent net journal Phenomenal World, and Nathan Tankus, of the important publication Notes on the Crises, have been additionally briefly college students right here. (Neither bought levels, however the work and the group matter greater than the credential.)
Why am I sharing this? Is it simply to brag? Properly, partially. I’m very happy with what we’ve performed with this program over the previous decade, and of the scholars who’ve handed by it. And to replace Hillel, in case you don’t speak about your personal work, who will speak about it?
However there’s additionally a extra particular and well timed purpose: For the subsequent two weeks, we’re nonetheless accepting purposes for Fall 2026. And I believe that readers of this weblog should know a number of younger (or not so younger) folks concerned about finding out heterodox economics at a public college in New York Metropolis.
If you happen to do know somebody who may match that description, right here is the pitch.
In contrast to most economics applications, John Jay is unapologetically dedicated to a progressive, policy-oriented strategy, and to the heterodox traditions of Marxian, Keynesian and feminist economics. Our college students and college see the research of economics each as an finish in itself and as a method of contributing to essentially the most urgent struggles in our society.
Whereas a lot of ours college students take up roles in politics, advocacy, journalism and coverage analysis (like on the Lease Tips Board) many others proceed on to PhD applications. In a single latest 12 months, we had an getting into class of 15 and eight college students who went on to PhD applications, a proportion I believe only a few different MA applications within the nation might match, even at rather more prestigious establishments.
John Jay School is situated at 59th St. and tenth Ave., close to Columbus Circle within the coronary heart of Manhattan. All courses within the MA program meet in individual in the future per week within the night. Most college students take three courses per semester and end this system in two years, however there isn’t a penalty for going at a unique tempo.
For anybody who has lived in New York State for at the least one 12 months as of September, full-time tuition is $5,545 per semester. That is pro-rated for these taking fewer courses, so the overall value for this system is roughly $22,000 whatever the time over which it’s accomplished. (That is lower than 1 / 4 the schooling at many comparable applications.) For non-resident full time college students tuition is considerably greater, however nonetheless low-cost in contrast with most graduate applications.
There’s a web based software right here. Solely the assertion of objective and transcript is required by July 15; suggestion letters can are available in later.
There isn’t any requirement to have beforehand studied economics; our college students come from a variety of backgrounds and plenty of have undergraduate levels within the humanities, bodily sciences or different fields. We’re much less concerned about what courses folks have taken than of their mental curiosity, a willingness to work onerous, and a dedication to utilizing economics coaching to assist change the world.
Does coming to John Jay assure that you just’ll play a number one position in constructing municipal socialism? Clearly not. However based mostly on our monitor document, it does appear to enhance the chances.
