The Syllabus is a column that features student opinions on timely national and international topics. We aim to highlight how evangelical students in the US are thinking about important issues and how the Christian faith informs their worldview. Students should use this link to submit a response for April’s prompt: “How do you think about AI use, and how are your peers using the technology? What, if anything, do you believe the Christian faith has to say about how we use AI?” Responses are due by April 20.
For this column, students were asked, “Politicians and pundits offer different ways of solving affordability issues in the US. What do you like—or dislike—about the approach taken by democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, center-left writers Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, and the techno-optimist vision of “sustainable abundance” by Elon Musk? Is there another option, more free-market oriented or not, that you believe could help your generation with housing and other costs?” Here is what they said:
Let’s Listen to Klein and Thompson and Build More
A good way to think about housing is the classic example of pricing snow shovels during a storm. Most people feel it is unfair for a store to raise prices when demand spikes, but economically, higher prices help ration limited supply and signal that more inventory is needed. If prices stay too low, a few people can buy everything, leaving others with nothing. It is not perfect, but it helps balance the market.
Housing works in a similar way. This is why the government forcing prices down to make housing affordable for everyone is not a real solution. It only makes shortages worse by reducing the incentive to build and thus limiting supply.
High prices feel frustrating, but they signal that there is not enough supply. We need to build more, and a big part of the problem is that we have made that too difficult. This is the problem Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson highlight, and it’s why their “abundance” approach to make housing more affordable (by building more) makes the most sense to me.
That said, there are important caveats. Real estate moves in cycles, and if too much supply hits at once, you can get rising vacancies and falling profits, which can slow future development. It also matters what we build and where we build it. So the goal should be strategic abundance, reducing barriers and regulations while still being thoughtful about timing, location, and scale.
Lucas Escamilla, senior, Baylor University
Americans Need to Learn How to Save
Affordability is one of the biggest buzzwords. Open a social media app, and you’ll see headlines declaring that Gen Z will never afford health care, let alone a house. People think sticking taxes on the rich and getting handouts is going to get them out of the hole. But those who climbed their way out of poverty and are now able to afford the unaffordable didn’t expect politicians to solve problems for them. They acted themselves.
My family immigrated to the US from El Salvador and lived a life where affordability extended far past housing and health care into everyday necessities. Rather than sitting around and passing the torch to politicians, they solved their issues quite simply: They worked. Ask Americans ranting about affordability what their dream jobs are; I doubt any would say working at Taco Bell. It might not be luxurious, but that’s what my family did. They lived minimally, saved, and let their earnings slowly accumulate.
In the book Mere Economics, economists Art Carden and Caleb S. Fuller encourage readers to save money so they can “bake a bigger pie next year.” Working hard is also straight up biblical. The apostle Paul writes, “Mind your own business and work with your hands” (1 Thess. 4:11). The real way to address affordability is to stop passing the blame to others and make it happen for yourself.
Paige Demosthenes, junior, Baylor University
Our Housing Dreams Are Doomed
It’s not hard to see that affordability in the US is becoming the plot of a dystopian novel, where basic needs grow increasingly out of reach. Shelter shouldn’t be a luxury. But in our current political atmosphere, I don’t see a solution for rising housing prices.
Most of the proposals offered thus far feel like chapters in the same dystopian story rather than actual exits. Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s vision offers the relief of rent control for rent-stabilized housing and the prospect of building more public housing, but it’s just a Band-Aid. On the other hand, Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein’s fight against the vetocracy—by trying to reverse an entire system of housing permitting laws—makes sense on paper. But it is essentially a losing battle against a system designed to say no. A lot of people, for example, don’t want more apartment buildings built in their neighborhoods, and their preference is our downfall.
Then there is Elon Musk’s techno-optimism, which feels the most dystopian. He thinks we would be living in the most optimal world when artificial intelligence and robotics have generated so much economic output that scarcity disappears entirely.
None of these paths feels like a real way out. Between Band-Aid fixes, never-ending fights about permits and zoning laws, and a lifeless robotic future, a true solution seems hopeless.
Tabitha Dalton, senior, Baylor University
Mamdani’s Long-Shot Plans Are Good
Zohran Mamdani’s approach to affordability stands out to me because it directly targets everyday costs. He thinks housing, transit, and food are public goods and wants to implement policies like rent freezes, free buses, and city-run grocery stores to help solve the issue in pricey New York City. Instead of relying on markets to gradually lower prices, he aims to immediately reduce costs for working people in a very clear way, which I appreciate. However, he does face major hurdles. Many of his proposals require state approval or billions in funding. So even though he has a strong vision, I do think his plans are not that feasible, at least in the short term.
By contrast, writers like Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson emphasize increasing supply, especially of housing, by reducing regulations. I think their approach is more pragmatic and arguably more achievable, but it can feel slow and less responsive to the immediate challenges people face. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s tech-fueled, no-work-needed vision is appealing in theory, but it lacks concrete short-term solutions and assumes technology alone will fix structural inequality.
So if I had my pick, I would say Mamdani, but he faces an uphill battle.
Tyler McKinney, senior, Baylor University
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The Government Is Making Things Worse
Mamdani, Klein, Thompson, and Musk each identify a real part of the affordability crisis. Mamdani is right to treat high housing costs as urgent. Klein and Thompson are right that scarcity, red tape, and blocked construction drive prices higher. Musk is right that innovation and growth can help. Still, these views miss a deeper problem: Affordability is also about government discipline, misplaced priorities, and a system too often run by career politicians with little incentive to reform it.
Policymakers expect young Americans to accept high rents, delayed family formation, and a lower standard of living even as Washington spends tens of billions of dollars on foreign aid. At the same time, it keeps expanding promises without showing the discipline to manage programs efficiently, reduce waste, or address long-term obligations like Social Security before a crisis forces painful cuts. Good stewardship means using limited public resources responsibly, because affordability is not only an economic issue but also a matter of human dignity and flourishing.
A better answer is a free market with guardrails. Policymakers should make it easier to build by cutting zoning barriers, shortening permit timelines, and reducing fees that discourage new housing. They should encourage competition and supply rather than relying on new public programs first. Congress should also adopt term limits. America should not be governed by lifetime federal politicians who face too little pressure to challenge failed systems. My generation does not need bigger promises. It needs more housing, more accountability, and leaders willing to let markets work while governing with restraint.
Jose Tamez Villarreal, senior, Baylor University
