Economics & Personal Finance

Description:

Current for 2026–27

This combination course is offered in a two-semester sequence. Economics in the fall builds the conceptual architecture—the vocabulary of choice, scarcity, systems, behavior, and ethics—that Personal Finance inhabits and applies in the spring. At the completion of this course, students will have studied money as a science, as a moral question, and as a personal discipline.

The through-line connecting both semesters is this: Every economic decision is also a moral decision, and every moral conviction must be tested against reality.

Economics asks: How do human beings behave under conditions of scarcity, and what systems emerge from that behavior? Personal Finance asks: Given everything we know about how markets and human psychology work, how should I order my own financial life? Together, they form a complete answer.

Economics is not merely a set of technical tools, but rather it is a moral science. Economics illuminates what we owe each other, what it means to flourish, and how our choices ripple outward into the lives of others.

Every economic system embodies a theory of human nature. Capitalism assumes that self-interest, channeled through markets, produces broadly beneficial outcomes. Socialism assumes that collective planning can serve human dignity better than the invisible hand. Christianity generally cites both as incomplete normative systems if they exclude God’s guidance.

A student who has thought carefully about economic systems and religious approaches to economics is far better prepared to make sound personal financial decisions than one who has simply been told “spend less than you earn.” Understanding why that rule is true and why to break that rule is the work of these two semesters together.

In line with BHSC’s educational philosophy and core commitments, this course centers on the formation of judgment, not merely the transmission of information. Both semesters follow this model:

• The Economics semester introduces students to the great debates: Adam Smith vs. Karl Marx, Milton Friedman vs. Pope Leo XIII, Daniel Kahneman vs. the rational-agent model. Students are not told what to conclude. They are taught to reason well.
• The Personal Finance semester introduces students to application of economic questions: how much to save, whether to use a credit card, whether to tithe on gross or net income. Students are not told what to do. They are given the tools to decide well.

In both semesters, the Socratic discussion method is primary. The instructor asks questions; students must reason, steelman opposing views, and update their positions when confronted with better arguments. All this is designed to lead to the formation of the kind of person who can be trusted with money, power, and freedom.