Elite Schools Teach Theft: The Latest Academic Absurdity

If you want to understand just how far elite academia has drifted from reality, look no further than the New School in Manhattan — a university where, for the low price of $10,040 per class, students can learn how to steal. Literally.

The course, officially titled “How to Steal,” is offered through the university’s sociology department. It’s not a joke, though it reads like one. The class promises to explore the “politics, ethics, and aesthetics of theft,” and includes field trips to places like museums, banks, and grocery stores — all charmingly described as sites where “capital is hoarded” and “value is contested.” In other words, these students are being encouraged to rethink private property as a violent imposition and theft as some sort of political resistance.

This isn’t fringe theory anymore. This is the new academic mainstream. And the message is clear: traditional values like property rights, personal responsibility, and merit are not just outdated — they’re oppressive. The New School is just saying what the rest of the elite academic world has been implying for years.

Of course, this is not really about theft. It’s about ideology. The course catalog calls it a study in “radical ethics.” That’s code for the idea that rules, laws, and even morality itself are tools of the powerful used to keep everyone else in line. So why not teach students to question — or reject — those rules entirely?

And let’s not pretend this is just a one-off. Columbia University has a class dedicated to analyzing Game of Thrones as empire-building. Princeton offers “Gaming Blackness,” a deep dive into race through video games. Yale lets students fulfill core humanities requirements by studying the lyrics of reggaeton star Bad Bunny. Brown encourages students to make TikToks about prison abolition as part of public policy coursework. NYU offers courses with titles like “Disability and Sexuality in American Culture,” all while charging nearly $100,000 a year.

These are not isolated examples. They’re proof of a systemic rot in higher education — and a strategic shift in how the left manufactures its future foot soldiers.

You see, the old left used to organize around class. Workers, unions, wages. That got boring. And worse, it didn’t scale. Today’s left organizes around identity and ideology, and the university system is their incubator. These schools don’t just hand out degrees; they mint activists. They indoctrinate students with a worldview where America is inherently evil, capitalism is theft, and any institution that maintains order — police, prisons, family, the church — is suspect.

The goal here isn’t education. It’s reprogramming.

And the people funding it? Mostly well-meaning parents who still believe a prestigious name on a diploma means something. They’re paying six figures for their kids to come home Thanksgiving break quoting Marx, correcting pronouns, and wondering whether shoplifting from Whole Foods is an act of liberation.

But here’s the kicker: the universities aren’t stupid. They know exactly what they’re doing. These absurd courses are not bugs in the system — they’re features. They serve a purpose. They attract media attention. They appeal to the activist donor class. They create ideological loyalty. And most importantly, they shield the institutions from accountability. Try to question this nonsense and you’ll be labeled anti-intellectual, racist, or worse.

Meanwhile, the real economy — the one that actually produces things — is quietly decoupling from this madness. Employers are growing tired of hiring credentialed ideologues who can deconstruct Beyoncé lyrics but can’t show up to work on time. More and more companies are moving to skills-based hiring, apprenticeships, and internal training programs. The university cartel is losing its grip, and they know it.

That’s why they’re doubling down. More identity studies. More fringe theory. And yes, more classes like “How to Steal.” Because when you can’t offer value, you sell virtue. When you can’t prepare students for the real world, you train them to tear it down.

And in the end, that’s the point. These courses aren’t about helping students succeed — they’re about making sure they never leave the tribe.