If I Had Unlimited Time and Money… I’d Invest in Better Thinking by Aizada

If I Had Unlimited Time and Money… I’d Invest in Better Thinking by Aizada - May 2025 Scholarship Essay

If I had unlimited time and money, I wouldn’t build a rocket ship or buy an island. I’d do something much less glamorous, but far more urgent: I’d help the world think better—especially the people making the decisions that shape our lives.

As an economics student, I’ve learned how to make sense of messy realities. We don’t just guess what causes what—we test it. We use models like OLS regression, which helps us understand how variables like education or wages affect outcomes. It’s not perfect, but it’s a step toward clarity in a world full of noise.

This kind of thinking—measured, tested, evidence-based—should be at the heart of big decisions, right?

That’s what I thought too. Then I joined a youth leadership fellowship where we met with professionals in policy and government. One speaker, a Bay Area policy advisor, opened my eyes. I asked him if those making policy decisions used economic tools—regressions, statistical models, any kind of data-driven analysis. He shook his head. “Most decision-makers come from legal backgrounds,” he said. “It’s less about what works best long-term and more about what costs less now.”

That answer stuck with me. In economics, we talk about return on investment. But in politics, short-term wins often outweigh long-term gains—because voters (and headlines) don’t have much patience. The best policies may take a decade to bloom, but who wants to wait when there’s an election in two years?

So, if I had unlimited time and money, I’d build a bridge between economic thinking and political action. Not a literal bridge (although I could afford that, too), but a system where policymakers have access to rigorous economic analysis—and are trained to understand it. I’d fund programs that embed data scientists and economists in city halls. I’d create fellowships where decision-makers sit in classrooms, learning how a coefficient isn’t just a number—it’s a clue to what really matters.

I’d also build tools the public can use—interactive dashboards that let people see, for example, how increasing education funding might reduce crime or improve income mobility. If people could visualize the ripple effects of smart policy, they might demand better decisions from their leaders.

Most importantly, I’d use my resources to buy what politics rarely allows: time. Time to research. Time to test. Time to make decisions not for tomorrow’s press conference, but for the next generation.

Greed usually shows up in two forms: wanting more money or wanting things faster. I’d fight both—not with slogans, but with smart, slow, well-funded thinking.

It’s not flashy. But it just might save us.