Albion College students to compete in Fed Challenge nat'l finals

Five students from Albion College believe they know how to fix the U.S. economy. The team will share their ideas tomorrow in Washington, D.C. at the national College Fed Challenge finals.

Albion will compete against the four other regional finalists: Harvard University; Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey; Lafayette College; and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Each team has 15 minutes to explain what they would do if they ran the Fed, and then take questions from the judges. The judges include Fed economists and Elizabeth Duke, a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Thomas Worden, 20, is a junior at Albion College. He says his team’s suggestion to the Fed is to stay the course.

"Right now the monetary policy they have implemented is sufficient and really needs no change," explains Worden. "We have to be more aware of what’s going on with the European situation, and just be aware of shocks that could occur to our economy."

Worden is excited for the finals, he says it makes him "feel important to be able to articulate what is going on in the economy and what the Fed should do accordingly."

When asked whether Worden thinks the Fed will take any of the teams' advice, Worden laughed and said "probably not ... while we’ve done considerable amount of work, the bottom line is we’re still 20 year olds."

The winners receive a trophy, and each team gets their photo taken with Federal Chairman Ben Bernanke.