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One problem is that economists are prone to recommending other undergraduate majors to students because we're the ones who think about human capital development and optimal decision making.

If you're stopping at a bachelors degree, then econ probably isn't the best choice. Also, if you want to go to grad school in econ, an undergraduate degree in econ probably isn't the best choice. Womp womp.

Econ curricula at top universities tend to be pretty mathematically rigorous including heavy math, stat, and computer requirements

Maybe that's another explanation? The Econ profs got too ahead of their skis in terms of the technical requirements and forgot that most of the students aren't interested in that, and if they were they wouldn't be majoring in Econ.

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The obvious answer is to just make econ a graduation requirement.

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Heh, I sit on a university wide curriculum committee and the biggest fights are exactly over which courses all undergrads are gonna be required to take. You can imagine why

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I don't have to imagine. I've been involved in those discussions as well.

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