Economics Student Mindset

Oct 10

Takeaways

Here's my takeaway up front: students walk into Econ 101 with their minds partly made up, and the economy they're walking into isn't making it easier.

The economy is still moving sideways. Few layoffs, little hiring, and wages that aren't keeping up with prices. Brandon and I both expect the Fed to hold rates at its October 27–28 meeting.
The gap starts before the first lecture. In a survey of roughly 3,000 students in the first two weeks of class, non-male and first-generation students came in with lower confidence, less sense of belonging, and less belief that economics connects to their lives.
Relevance, belonging, and growth mindset are things we can teach. Show students what economists actually do, reach out personally when they struggle, and bring this week's headlines into class, even when they don't fit the lesson perfectly.

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About this episode

Brandon Sheridan, an associate professor of economics at Elon University, is back on the show. In August, he told us the economy was moving sideways. A month and a half later, I asked him if anything had changed. Short answer: not much.

Then we got into the conversation I've wanted to have with him for a while: his new paper with 25 coauthors on what students bring with them on the first day of an economics class. If you teach economics, this one is for you.

The economy: still stuck in a holding pattern

Employers added 29,000 jobs in September when economists expected 84,000. The two months before that were revised down by about 60,000.

You don't have a lot of people losing jobs, but you're not adding many either. And wage growth is running below inflation, which is unusual when unemployment is this low. Going into the midterms, there's nothing in this report to celebrate.

So why did the Fed raise rates at its last meeting with the labor market this soft? Brandon's answer: the Fed has a dual mandate, and the alarm bells aren't on the employment side. Inflation has been elevated for years, and more of it now looks like it's coming from the demand side, which is the part the Fed can actually do something about. Once inflation expectations get sticky, they're hard to undo. Businesses signing contracts with suppliers and workers start planning for higher prices.

After the jobs report, prediction markets cut the odds of another hike at the October 27–28 meeting from about 70% to about 25%. Brandon expects a hold, and so do I. Bond yields have been rising on their own, and mortgage rates just hit 7.28%, so in some sense the market is already doing part of the Fed's job.

Headlines Brandon is taking into class

This is why I love having Brandon on. Neither of these was on my radar.

Diesel. Proposals ranging from an export ban to letting everyone buy red-dye diesel, not just farmers, make a clean principles-class exercise: what happens to prices when you shift demand in that market? Students see quickly that the relief is small and short-lived.

Inflating away the debt. The president recently suggested inflation could be an easy way to get rid of a lot of the national debt. Technically, a government that prints its own currency can pay bondholders with new money. In Brandon's view, it's one of the worst ideas he's heard: it would likely mean double-digit inflation, and it would permanently raise the interest rate the U.S. pays to borrow, because the risk is no longer theoretical. The real issue, he says, is that spending and revenue are out of balance, and neither fix is pleasant. It's a great principles-class question because students often struggle to see what's so bad about just printing money.

What students bring to day one

Economics has had a diversity problem for decades. Women earn about two-thirds of bachelor's degrees in this country but only about a third of economics degrees. Other math-heavy fields, like engineering and biology, have closed that gap since the late 1990s. Economics hasn't. So "econ is math-heavy" doesn't explain it.

Brandon and his coauthors asked a different question. Not what happens in the classroom, but what students bring with them when they walk in. They surveyed 3,212 students in 45 courses taught by 35 instructors at 24 schools, in the first two weeks of the semester, before students had learned much of anything. They measured four things:

Belonging: Do I belong here?
Growth mindset: Can I get better at this?
Self-efficacy: Can I succeed?
Relevance: Does economics matter to my life?

The good news is that mindset is relatively strong overall. But with thousands of students, the differences show up:

12.9points lower: non-male students believing economics connects to their daily life

7.5points lower: non-male students' confidence in passing an econ course

6.9points lower: first-gen students' sense that they belong in an econ class

Non-male students are more likely to see economics as abstract and to doubt they can succeed. First-generation students are less likely to feel they belong. That's important for us as instructors to know on day one.

How do you get 35 instructors at 24 schools to run the same survey in the same two weeks? Through the Economic Education Network for Experiments (EENE), a network where members pitch a study and other instructors join as coauthors. For many, it lowers the barrier to research: no IRB to run alone, no need for a big class. Doug McKee at Cornell led the logistics. A follow-up paper on how mindset changes over the semester is in the works, and randomized controlled trials are coming next.

What we can do about it

Start with what economics is. Brandon opens by asking students what they think economics is. The most common answer is money and the stock market. Then he shows them they can use economics to study things like name, image, and likeness in college sports.

Reach out personally. If a student lands below the median on the first quiz or exam, send a short, personal email offering to talk about how they study. Sometimes it's not the class. They just have other things going on, and a C might be the right choice for them. Either way, they know you care.

Use active learning. The best answer to "I'm not a math person" is practice that proves otherwise.

Make it relevant. Brandon uses Netflix price increases to teach elasticity. About a third of people say they'd cancel, but in the actual data, cancellations are in the single digits. In my MBA class, we use Liquid Death: it's water, a commodity, yet branding lets them charge more by making substitutes feel like they're not substitutes.

Show your human side. I talk about my friends' research, like Brandon's, and recommend economists to follow on social media. When students see me geek out, it builds relevance and belonging at the same time.

Bring in this week's headlines, even if they don't fit perfectly. A jobs report at the start of class becomes a hook you can come back to when you reach the labor market chapter. What's a good jobs number? Why do estimates get revised?

For economics educators: Bringing relevant examples into class is exactly what we built Decode Econ for. If you know someone who wants to do this but doesn't know where to start, share this episode with them. And if you have questions about our conversation, reach out. We're here as a resource.

Our guest

Brandon Sheridan is an associate professor of economics at Elon University, where he teaches principles of economics and researches how students learn economics. Connect with Brandon on LinkedIn

What we cover

00:00Why economics hasn't closed its gender gap
02:51Is the economy still moving sideways?
03:55September's jobs report: 29,000 jobs against 84,000 expected
04:58Why would the Fed raise rates with a weak labor market?
07:15Will the Fed hike again on October 27–28?
09:01Mortgage rates hit 7.28%
09:17Classroom headlines: diesel
10:14Can you inflate away the national debt?
15:20Economics' gender gap and the new paper
16:49How 35 instructors at 24 schools ran one study
19:49Why survey students in the first two weeks
21:49The findings: gender and first-gen gaps
24:29Day one: "What do you think economics is?"
26:20Interventions that help
29:32Relevance, belonging, and growth mindset in practice
31:22Teaching elasticity with Liquid Death and Netflix
33:59Bringing the news into class
36:55Takeaways

Research for economics educators

Want to go deeper? Here's the research behind this conversation, plus my own work on belonging in the classroom.

The paper we discuss Measuring academic mindset in economics courses Surveys 3,212 students in 45 courses at 24 U.S. institutions as they start an economics course. Students who don't identify as male, and first-generation college students, start with lower academic mindset scores, and the gaps are larger in intro courses than in upper-level ones. Marshall, E. C., Sheridan, B., McKee, D., Orlov, G., Goffe, W., Bellas, A., … & Wong, K. (2026). Measuring academic mindset in economics courses. International Review of Economics Education, 52, 100349.
The international follow-up International insights into the academic mindset of economics students Follows 1,188 students at 11 universities in eight countries from the start to the end of a term. Belonging and relevance tended to rise, while self-efficacy fell. Non-male students reported lower self-efficacy and relevance, and active learning was often linked to stronger mindsets. Cortinhas, C., Sadeh, J., McKee, D., Marshall, E., Sheridan, B., Cameron, M. P., … & Tariq, A. (2026). International insights into the academic mindset of economics students. International Review of Economics Education, 53, 100357.
How the network works Enabling collaborative research at scale: The Economic Education Network for Experiments (EENE) Most of what we know about teaching economics comes from one or two instructors at one school. EENE runs coordinated studies across many classrooms to fix that, and instructors can join as coauthors. Orlov, G., McKee, D., Sheridan, B., Marshall, E. C., & Goffe, W. (2026). Enabling collaborative research at scale: The Economic Education Network for Experiments (EENE). The Journal of Economic Education, 57(1), 130–136.
My research on belonging Classroom management and student interaction interventions: Fostering diversity, inclusion, and belonging in the undergraduate economics classroom Low-cost things faculty can do in principles courses, through classroom management and how we interact with students, to build a sense of belonging. Al-Bahrani, A. (2022). Classroom management and student interaction interventions: Fostering diversity, inclusion, and belonging in the undergraduate economics classroom. The Journal of Economic Education, 53(3), 259–272.