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.
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
Categories and Prizes:
Prizes | High School | Undergraduate | Graduate |
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 |
Useful Links
2023 Essay Contest Winners
1st Place ($1,500) | |
---|---|
High School Category | Ethan Yang, St. George's Senior School |
Undergraduate | Louis Mercier, HEC Montreal |
Graduate | Joseph McKinnon, Carleton University |
2nd Place ($1,000) | |
High School Category | Saqib Syed, Cresecent Heights High School |
Undergraduate | Joseph Cressatti, McGill University |
Graduate | Yasser Elfahli, University of Ottawa |
3rd Place ($750) | |
High School Category | Fiona Weiler, Lord Beaverbrook High School |
Undergraduate | Martin Edwini-Bonsu, University of British Columbia |
Graduate | Anais Blanchard, HEC Montreal |
4th Place ($500) | |
High School Category | Emma So & Lucas Orfanides, St. Augustine Catholic High School |
Undergraduate | Melanie Chan, University of British Columbia |
Graduate | Matthew Taylor, University of Saskatchewan |
5th Place ($250) | |
High School Category | William Clarke, A.Y. Jackson Secondary School |
Undergraduate | Isaac Bahler, Dalhousie University |
Graduate | David 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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