How do Princeton and Colgate compare for studying economics as an undergraduate?

The biggest practical tradeoff is scale and intensity versus intimacy and access. Princeton offers a larger, more research-driven economics environment with many upper-level options, a very prominent faculty, and especially strong connections to quantitative economics, public policy, finance, and graduate-level scholarship. Colgate gives you a smaller liberal arts setting where economics majors often get closer faculty interaction, smaller classes overall, and a department experience that can feel more personal day to day.

At Princeton, economics is one of the university’s most visible undergraduate fields, so the department has real depth. You are more likely to find a wider menu of electives and a campus culture where many students are deeply engaged with economics, mathematics, computer science, policy, and related fields. The academic atmosphere can feel fast-paced and highly analytical, and students who enjoy theory, formal modeling, and being surrounded by a large concentration of very academically driven peers often thrive there.

Colgate’s advantage is that the undergraduate experience is the center of the institution. That matters because economics courses are not competing with a major graduate program for attention, and faculty teaching is a core priority. For some students, that leads to more discussion, easier access to professors, and a stronger sense of being known as an individual rather than one student among many interested in the same major.

In terms of preparation, both can lead to strong outcomes, but the style is different. Princeton may give you broader exposure to high-level economics and adjacent quantitative work, which is especially useful if you might later consider research, top policy work, or a very math-heavy path. Colgate can be excellent if you want rigorous economics within a classic liberal arts framework and value close mentorship as much as departmental breadth.

Princeton has the more powerful department academically, but Colgate can offer the more personal one. I would lean Princeton for economics unless you know you learn best in a smaller, relationship-driven classroom environment and want that to shape your whole college experience.