Colleges and universities offering absurd courses is nothing new. You can earn credit learning how to climb a tree, watching television, researching zombies in popular media, studying the science of Harry Potter, or musing about the sociology of Miley Cyrus. But it’ll cost you, of course. On average, annual college tuition at private institutions is around $63,000…why waste thousands of dollars on such classes and then cry about student loan debt?
One school in New York City is raising eyebrows over a Fall course offering—and not just because it’s a waste of money. At The New School, students can earn four credits in a class called “How to Steal."
Just take a look at the course description…
This field-based seminar explores the politics, ethics, and aesthetics of theft in a world where accumulation is sacred, dispossession is routine, and the line between private property and public good is drawn in blood. Students will critically examine what it means to steal—from whom, for whom, and why—through site visits and fieldwork in places where capital is hoarded and value is contested: corporate storefronts, grocery chains, museums, libraries, banks, and cultural institutions. We will ask: Is it possible to steal back what was already stolen? What does theft look like under capitalism, colonialism, and in everyday life? When is theft survival, protest, or care—and when is it violence, appropriation, or harm? Readings will span critical theory, political economy, abolitionist thought, and radical histories of expropriation and redistribution. Students will produce field journals, collective mappings, and speculative strategies for redistributing wealth, knowledge, and beauty. This is not a course in petty crime—it is a study in moral ambiguity, radical ethics, and imaginative justice. (New School)
It's no wonder institutions of "higher education" are viewed as nothing more than bastions of progressive orthodoxy that do nothing to prepare students for the real world.
"And get this: It’s a four-credit course, meaning this class alone will cost students — or their parents — an eye-watering $10,040."
— Erik Wedin (@Aktivarum) September 2, 2025
I guess the school have PERFECTED the art of stealing from students (parents) then?
The New School in Manhattan, a four-year private university is offering a class called “How To Steal” for $10,000 and will include field trips to “places where capital is hoarded and value is contested” — like museums, banks and even grocery stores, according to the New York… pic.twitter.com/b6i6s3sfWa
— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) September 3, 2025
We’ve officially lost the plot in higher education. Students are paying $60k–$97k a year to take courses on “How to Steal,” Game of Thrones, Bad Bunny lyrics, and TikTok activism while classics like Shakespeare, Plato, and calculus are pushed aside. Colleges have turned into…
— Charles Perreira (@CharlesPerreir7) September 2, 2025