NY college offering $10,000 anti-capitalist course called ‘How to Steal’

At The New School, a private college in Manhattan, New York, students can take a four-credit sociology seminar titled “How to Steal.”

The course costs more than $10,000 at the school’s per-credit tuition rate, according to Campus Reform. Annual tuition at the university exceeds $60,000.

The course description says it is an academic study of theft, not a guide to committing crimes.

“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,” the catalogue says.

The seminar examines how theft is interpreted under the concepts of “capitalism” and “colonialism,” inquiring when it may be considered a form of survival, protest or care and when it is instead viewed as violence.

Students in the class must visit grocery stores, banks, libraries and museums, which the course identifies as sites where “capital is hoarded and value is contested.”

“This is not a course in petty crime – it is a study in moral ambiguity, radical ethics and imaginative justice,” the listing says.

The course comes as some college campuses embrace anti-capitalist themes.

At Yale University, a student-run publication defended shoplifting from the campus convenience store, known as the Bow Wow.

The opinion piece, titled “Keep Stealing from the Bow Wow,” argued Yale’s $40 billion endowment and tax breaks made theft a symbolic act against “extractive” financial practices:

“So, are quick-fingered students really ‘taking advantage’ of The Bow Wow’s security flaws? In all fairness, I would entertain someone who argues yes, but I think that such a debate only distracts from the larger issue at hand. Indeed, if anyone is ‘taking advantage’ of anything, it is Yale taking advantage of its student body and of New Haven.”

The piece argued minor thefts of food and necessities were acts of survival for the ivy league students, citing fees for printing, laundry and schedule changes.

Polling shows young Americans are increasingly open to socialist and communist ideas.

A March 2025 Cato Institute/YouGov survey found 62% of Americans under 30 view socialism favorably compared to 38% who do not; 34% of young adults also said they view communism favorably, while just 14% of all respondents shared that view.

Earlier this year, Iowa State University offered an “Anti-Capitalist Personal Finance” lecture.

At Fordham University, the Young Democratic Socialists of America distributed free Plan B in defiance of school policy.

Additionally, Marxist scholar Angela Davis told students at Princeton University last fall that she seeks to “overturn the capitalist system.”