The Educational Value of the College Fed Challenge Competition

The College Fed Challenge is a competition between undergraduate students from different colleges and universities. It is designed to enhance the development of research, critical thinking, and presentation skills. This paper analyzes the value of the competition as an instrument for improving undergraduate economics education. We argue that the College Fed Challenge incorporates many of the recommendations in Educating Economists: The Teagle Discussion on Re-Evaluating the Undergraduate Economics Major (2009). We present results from surveys of (a) students from schools that participated in regional competitions in 2010 and in 2011 and (b) graduates from the University of Delaware who participated in past years. A focus of the surveys was to determine whether participation improved the skills described by Hansen. The results reflect the impressive effect on student learning outcomes. We conclude that the visibility of the College Fed Challenge can be an important factor in determining its impact. If the competition were national in scope, if the judges were carefully selected so that success in the competition were more meaningful, and if the American Economic Association were to provide stronger support, then the competition could conceivably have a significant and positive impact on economics education in the United States.