Economics at MIT vs. Yale

Physics08
Wed, 15 Apr 2009 03:50:26 +0000

The economics program at MIT is generally considered more prestigious than Yale’s econ department. Most of the top economists and public officials in government and economics hold ties to MIT such as Ben Bernanke and Larry Summers.

I think the main difference between how economics is taught at MIT vs other universities is with respect to the depth of math. MIT’s intro courses in econ are highly analytical and similar to applied math classes. Rather, Yale’s econ courses will tend to be more qualitative and essay-oriented.

However, at Yale you’ll probably have a lot more econ majors. My guess is that there are typically around 100 econ majors in each Yale class. There are around 30-40 in my year at MIT. This is mainly due to the fact that MIT also has an undergrad management program whereas Yale only has the traditional liberal arts education in economics, so a lot of finance/want-to-be ibankers major in econ at Yale.