Student Essay Contest

The Fraser Institute’s 2024 Student Essay Contest is NOW OPEN! Join the conversation and showcase your ideas on public policy by entering our Student Essay Contest for the chance to win the grand cash prize! Winning essays may be published in Fraser Institute journals and authors will have the opportunity to experience the peer review process.

Student Essay Contest

2024 Student Essay Contest - What would the Fraser Institute's Essential Scholars say about the world today?

Unprecedented is a word that has been used repeatedly to describe all aspects of the last few years: a global pandemic, challenges of unemployment, overwhelmed health care facilities, high inflation, revolutionized AI, the rise of electric vehicles, etc. Governments often respond to remarkable moments in history by creating policies they feel would help address the situation.

Consider what insights our Essential Scholars series can offer the current situations and events? Relying on the ideas of one of our Essential Scholars, construct an essay that describes a scholar’s response, explanation, or rebuttal to a current event. You can use a scholar’s economic theory to examine unprecedented situations, propose potential policies that a scholar would have put forward, or suggest how certain existing policies may have been adapted by a particular Essential Scholar.

Example Essay Questions:

  • What would Milton Friedman argue should be a government’s response to inflation?
  • In a post-COVID world, what would Jane Jacobs say about the state of our cities?
  • How can Joseph Schumpeter’s concept of creative destruction help us understand the rise and fall of businesses or new technology?
  • What would one of the Essential Scholars say about Canada’s current housing and rent situation?
  • How might F.A. Hayek address today’s current unemployment rate and what policy recommendations might he suggest?

Learn more about essay contest requirements and submission process by reading our 2024 Contest Rules and FAQ Student Essay Contest 2024.

Visit www.essentialscholars.org to read our Essential Scholars books online and watch the accompanying videos.

Submission Deadline: June 5, 2024

Submit Your Essay

 

Categories and Prizes:

PrizesHigh SchoolUndergraduateGraduate
1st Prize$1,500$1,500$1,500
2nd Prize$1,000$1,000$1,000
3rd Prize$750$750$750
4th Prize$500$500$500
5th Prize $250$250$250

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2023 Essay Contest Winners

 1st Place ($1,500)
High School CategoryEthan Yang,
St. George's Senior School
UndergraduateLouis Mercier,
HEC Montreal
GraduateJoseph McKinnon,
Carleton University
 2nd Place ($1,000)
High School CategorySaqib Syed,
Cresecent Heights High School
UndergraduateJoseph Cressatti,
McGill University
GraduateYasser Elfahli,
University of Ottawa
 3rd Place ($750)
High School CategoryFiona Weiler,
Lord Beaverbrook High School
UndergraduateMartin Edwini-Bonsu,
University of British Columbia
GraduateAnais Blanchard,
HEC Montreal
 4th Place ($500)
High School CategoryEmma So & Lucas Orfanides,
St. Augustine Catholic High School
UndergraduateMelanie Chan,
University of British Columbia
GraduateMatthew Taylor,
University of Saskatchewan
 5th Place ($250)
High School CategoryWilliam Clarke,
A.Y. Jackson Secondary School
UndergraduateIsaac Bahler,
Dalhousie University
GraduateDavid Jones,
University of Toronto

Previous winners archive:

2023 Student Essay Contest Winners

2022 Student Essay Contest Winners

2021 Student Essay Contest Winners

2020 Student Essay Contest Winners

2019 Student Essay Contest Winners

2018 Student Essay Contest Winners

2017 Student Essay Contest Winners

2016 Student Essay Contest Winners

2015 Student Essay Contest Winners

 

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