[A couple of the formulas in the model have been updated since publication, but the basic financial story remains the same. I have noted in the story where exact figures differ from initial publication.]

One of the largest economic and sociological shifts of the 20th century was the rise of the dual earner family, where both parents were involved in the workforce. In 1960, 70% of American married couples with young children were families where only the dad was in the workforce; by 1990, this fraction was only about 30%, where it has stayed ever since. …

I was the research assistant for a New York Magazine package on the real scoop on making it at Stanford called A Cynic’s Guide to Stanford (here) that focused on tech and a follow-up that focused on the rest of campus (here). The package is a tongue-in-cheek plan, from the perspective of a hypothetical cynical person, to get every single thing they can out of the place. I wanted to write down some more freeform thoughts (these views are my own).

Most people at Stanford have earnestness and deep ambition. These are not inherently bad traits to have! …

I wanted to make this an real essay about the rise of dual class share structures in tech companies and have an original take on how we should respond to it and What It Means, but after reading a bunch of papers about it I didn’t really have one, so here is a stream of consciousness instead.

The unit of the corporation is a hallmark of American capitalism. A corporation is a legal entity where people can come and go as they fill in the standard slots: the employees, the shareholders, the CEO, the board of directors, etc. Any individual…

Before Josh Hawley became the Attorney General of Missouri, opened investigations into several of Silicon Valley’s most prominent companies, and entered into the 2018 Missouri Senate race, he was a Stanford undergraduate (class of 2002) who colleagues say was driven and ambitious, to the point of discussing his desire to become the President of the United States.

Additionally, Hawley’s undergraduate columns, written for the Stanford Review, a campus right-leaning newspaper cofounded by Peter Thiel, offer insights into his political views, particularly education policy. Thiel, who has been extensively involved with the Review since he founded it in 1987, has donated…

Over the past seven years, I received over $330,000 of need-based financial aid, and it gave me a one-way ticket to the new American elite.

I grew up attending public schools in Iowa and Ohio until increasing frustration with my schooling led my family and me to reply to a flier that we received alerting us to the existence of boarding schools. Up until then, I believed boarding schools only existed in England; I had never heard of “Exeter” or “Andover.” …

The Bridge Peer Counseling Center has long been a fixture of Stanford. Long before Cory Booker (’91) was a U.S. Senator and one of the biggest names of the Democratic Party, when he was still an undergraduate majoring in political science and writing columns for the Stanford Daily, he was a Peer Counselor at The Bridge, and quite an involved one at that. Booker served tirelessly in a time when the Bridge’s very institutional survival was in question, and played a significant role in its recovery.

I am a Bridge Counselor, and during the summer, I was tasked with going…

One of the defining stories of the year was a guessing game: which of the political Right’s factions (neoconservatives, libertarians, the Religious Right, etc.) would go along with Trump’s gleeful trashing of traditional movement conservatism and assertion of a populist white nationalism? Where members of each faction chose to stand often said more about them than it did about Trump himself, who often seemed to be making it up as he went along, reversing his policy positions on a dime if it seemed worthwhile at that moment. …

This article is part of a series on housing politics and policy, particularly in the context of the Bay Area. Other articles on housing can be found here.

Following the public resignation of Palo Alto Planning and Transportation Commissioner Kate Downing, the Stanford Political Journal has talked to multiple figures involved in Palo Alto housing policy.

As part of this series, SPJ interviewed Adrian Fine, the chair of the Palo Alto Planning Transportation Commission on which Downing served and a candidate for the Palo Alto city council (Fine is also a City Strategist for Nextdoor, a technology company). A Palo…