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Our Legacy
We proudly promote educational choice as the intellectual legacy of Nobel laureate Milton Friedman and economist Rose D. Friedman.
The Friedmans’ interest in improving the American education system began in 1955. In 1996, the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice was born. In 2016, that organization became EdChoice to honor their desire to separate their last name from their enduring vision. Now, more than half of the U.S. has educational choice, but there’s still more work to do to empower every American family.
Academic Degrees
- B.A., Rutgers University, 1932
- M.A., University of Chicago, 1933
- Ph.D., Columbia University, 1946
Honorary Degrees
- LL.D., St. Paul’s University (Tokyo, Japan), 1963
- LL.D., Kalamazoo College, 1968
- LL.D., Rutgers University, 1968
- L.H.D., Rockford College, 1969
- LL.D., Lehigh University, 1969
- D.Sc., University of Rochester, 1971
- Litt.D., Bethany College, 1971
- LL.D., Loyola University (Chicago), 1971
- L.H.D., Roosevelt University, 1975
- LL.D., University of New Hampshire, 1975
- (Hon.) Ph.D., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1977
- D.C.S., Francisco Marroquín University (Guatemala), 1978
- LL.D., Harvard University, 1979
- LL.D., Brigham Young University, 1980
- LL.D., Dartmouth College, 1980
- L.H.D., Hebrew Union College (Los Angeles), 1981
- LL.D., Gonzaga University, 1981
- L.H.D., Jacksonville University, 1993
- H.C.D., Economics University of Prague, 1997
Academic Appointments
- Paul Snowden Russell Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Economics, University of Chicago
- Part-time Lecturer, Columbia University, 1937-40
- Visiting Professor of Economics, University of Wisconsin, 1940-41
- Associate Professor of Economics and Business Administration, University of Minnesota, 1945-46
- Associate Professor of Economics, University of Chicago,1946-48
- Professor of Economics, University or Chicago,1948-63
- Paul Snowden Russell Distinguished Service Professor of Economics, 1963-82
- Visiting Fulbright Lecturer, Cambridge University, 1953-54
- Wesley Clair Mitchell Visiting Research Professor, Columbia University, 1964-65
- Visiting Professor, U.C.L.A., Winter Quarter, 1967
- Visiting Professor, University of Hawaii, Winter Quarter, 1972
Research Positions
- Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, 1977-2006
- Research Assistant, Social Science Research Committee, University of Chicago, 1934-35
- Associate Economist, National Resources Committee, Washington, D.C., 1935-37
- Member of Research Staff, National Bureau of Economic Research, New York, 1937-45 (on leave 1940-45), 1948-81
- Principal Economist, Division of Tax Research, U.S. Department of the Treasury, 1941-43
- Associate Director, Statistical Research Group, Division of War Research, Columbia University, 1943-45
- Visiting Scholar, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, January-March 1977
Other Positions
- Consultant, Economic Co-operation Administration, Paris, Fall 1950
- Consultant, International Co-operation Administration, India, Fall 1955
- Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California, 1957-58
- Ford Faculty Research Fellow, from the University of Chicago, 1962-63
- Columnist and Contributing Editor, Newsweek, September 1966-June 1984
Professional Societies
- Member, American Economic Association (Board of Editors, American Economic Review, 1951- 53; Executive Committee, 1955-57; President, 1967)
- Member, Mont Pelerin Society (American Secretary, 1957-62; Member of Council, 1962-65; Vice President, 1967-70; President, 1970-72; Vice President, 1972-80)
- Member, The Philadelphia Society (Board of Trustees, 1965-67, 1970-72, 1976-78)
- Member, Royal Economic Society
- Member, Western Economic Association (Vice President, 1982-83; President-elect, 1983-84; President, 1984-85)
Elected Societies
- Fellow, American Statistical Association
- Fellow, Econometric Society (Board of Editors, Econometrica, 1957-69)
- Fellow, Institute of Mathematical Statistics
- Member, American Philosophical Society, 1957-
- Associate Member, Belgian Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts, 1971-
- Member, National Academy of Sciences, 1973-
- Foreign Member, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Italy), 1978-
- Fellow, Jewish Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1986-
- Fellow, National Association of Business Economists, 1989-
- Active Member, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Europaea (European Academy of Sciences and Arts), 1992-
Other Activities
- Council of Academic Advisers, American Enterprise Institute, 1956-79
- Member, Board of Directors, Aldine Publishing Company, 1961-76
- Policy-holder Elected Trustee, CREF, 1964-68
- Advisory Board, Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, 1968-94
- Member, The President’s Commission on an All-Volunteer Armed Force, 1969-70
- Member, The President’s Commission on White House Fellows, 1971-73
- Member, Advisory Committee on Monetary Statistics, Federal Reserve System, 1974
- Member, The President’s Economic Policy Advisory Board, 1981-88
- Honorary Adviser, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies of the Bank of Japan, October 1982-86
- Presenter of a ten-part TV series on PBS called “Free to Choose,” January-March 1980. The same series in shortened form (six parts) was also aired on BBC in England, February-March 1980. “Free to Choose” was also shown in other countries, including Australia, Holland, Japan, and Singapore. An updated tenth anniversary edition of “Free to Choose,” consisting of five parts, was aired on CNBC early in 1991.
- Presenter of three one-half hour TV programs called “Tyranny of the Status Quo” on PBS in March and April 1984
- Founding Member, National Coalition for Drug Policy Change, 1993
- Chairman, Board of Directors, Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation, 1996-2006.
Honors and Awards
- John Bates Clark medallist (American Economic Association), 1951
- Chicagoan of the Year (Chicago Press Club), 1972
- Educator of the Year (Chicago Jewish United Fund), 1973
- Nobel Prize for Economic Science, 1976
- Scopus Award (American Friends of The Hebrew University), 1977
- Private Enterprise Exemplar Medal (Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge), 1978
- Valley Forge Honor Certificate for speech on “The Future of Capitalism” (Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge), 1978
- George Washington Honor Medal (Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge), 1978 and 1980
- Gold Medal (National Institute of Social Sciences, New York), 1978
- Statesman of the Year Award (Sales & Marketing Executives International), 1981
- Ohio State Award for “Free to Choose” TV Series, 1981
- New Perspectives Award for “Free to Choose” TV Series (Touche Ross & Co.), 1981
- One of the 1980 Tuck Media Awards for Economic Understanding, for “Free to Choose” TV Series (Amos Tuck School of Business Administration, Dartmouth College), awarded in 1981
- Grand Cordon of the First Class Order of the Sacred Treasure (Japanese Government), 1986
- National Medal of Science, 1988
- Presidential Medal of Freedom, 1988
- Institution of World Capitalism Prize (Jacksonville University), 1993
- Goldwater Award (Goldwater Institute), 1997
- Robert Maynard Hutchins History Maker Award for Distinction in Education (Chicago Historical Society), 1997
- Source Award for Lifetime Achievement (The Primary Source, Tufts University), 1997
- Templeton Honor Rolls Lifetime Achievement Award, 1997
Milton Friedman, recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize for Economic Science, was a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, from 1977 to 2006. He was also Paul Snowden Russell Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Chicago, where he taught from 1946 to 1976, and was a member of the research staff of the National Bureau of Economic Research from 1937 to 1981.
Professor Friedman was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1988 and received the National Medal of Science the same year. He is widely regarded as the leader of the Chicago School of monetary economics, which stresses the importance of the quantity of money as an instrument of government policy and as a determinant of business cycles and inflation.
In addition to his scientific work, Professor Friedman had also written extensively on public policy, always with primary emphasis on the preservation and extension of individual freedom. His most important books in this field are (with Rose D. Friedman) Capitalism and Freedom (University of Chicago Press, 1962); Bright Promises, Dismal Performance (Thomas Horton and Daughters, 1983), which consists mostly of reprints of tri-weekly columns that he wrote for Newsweek from 1966 to 1983; and (with Rose Friedman) Free to Choose (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980), which complements a ten-part TV series of the same name, shown over PBS in early 1980, and (with Rose D. Friedman) Tyranny of the Status Quo (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984), which complements a three-part TV series of the same name, shown over PBS in early 1984.
He was a member of the President’s Commission on an All-Volunteer Armed Force (1969-70) and of the President’s Commission on White House Fellows (1971-73). He was a member of President Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board, a group of experts outside the government, named in early 1981 by President Reagan.
He had also been active in public affairs, serving as an informal economic adviser to Senator Goldwater in his unsuccessful campaign for the presidency in 1964, to Richard Nixon in his successful campaign in 1968, to President Nixon subsequently, and to Ronald Reagan in his 1980 campaign.
He had published many books and articles, most notably A Theory of the Consumption Function (University of Chicago Press, 1957), The Optimum Quantity of Money and Other Essays (Aldine, 1969), and (with A. J. Schwartz) A Monetary History of the United States (Princeton University Press, 1963), Monetary Statistics of the United States (Columbia University Press, 1970), and Monetary Trends in the United States and the United Kingdom (University of Chicago Press, 1982).
Professor Friedman was a past president of the American Economic Association, the Western Economic Association, and the Mont Pelerin Society, and is a member of the American Philosophical Society and of the National Academy of Sciences.
He also had been awarded honorary degrees by universities in the United States, Japan, Israel, and Guatemala, as well as the Grand Cordon of the First Class Order of the Sacred Treasure by the Japanese government in 1986.
Friedman received a B.A. in 1932 from Rutgers University, an M.A. in 1933 from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in 1946 from Columbia University.
He and his wife established the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation, for the purpose of promoting parental choice of the schools their children attend. The Foundation is based in Indianapolis and its president and chief executive officer is Robert C. Enlow.
He and his wife published their memoirs: Milton and Rose D. Friedman, Two Lucky People: Memoirs (University of Chicago Press, 1998).
On November 16, 2006, Dr. Friedman passed away at the age of 94 in San Francisco.
Rose Director Friedman attended Reed College and then transferred to the University of Chicago where she received a Bachelor of Philosophy degree. She continued her training in economics at the University of Chicago, completing all work for a Ph.D. except for writing a thesis.
Rose was on the staff of the National Resources Committee (Washington, D.C.), working on a nationwide study of consumer purchases, and continued work on that study at the Bureau of Home Economics.
She then joined the staff of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation where she worked until she was married and moved to New York, where she was on the staff of the National Bureau of Economic Research until she and her husband moved to Wisconsin in 1940. Rose continued economic research on her own, publishing a pamphlet, Poverty -Definition and Perspective (American Enterprise Institute, 1965), and a series of twelve articles entitled “Milton Friedman – Husband and Colleague” in the Oriental Economist (May 1976 to August 1977). The series also was published as a book in Japanese.
Rose collaborated with her husband on three books on public policy that have received wide attention and circulation: Capitalism and Freedom (University of Chicago Press, 1962), Free to Choose (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980), and Tyranny of the Status Quo (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984). She also served as associate producer of the PBS television series “Free to Choose.”
She received an honorary LL.D. in December 1986 from Pepperdine University.
Rose and her husband Milton established the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation, now The Foundation for Educational Choice, in 1996, for the purpose of promoting parental school choice.
Rose and Milton published their memoirs: Milton and Rose D. Friedman, Two Lucky People: Memoirs (University of Chicago Press, 1998).
On August 16, 2009, Rose D. Friedman passed away at the age of 98 in San Francisco.
Founder’s Letter
This foundation is the culmination of what has been one of our main interests for more than four decades: improvement in the quality of the education available to children of all income and social classes in this nation, whether that education is provided in government or private schools or at home.
The Voucher Challenge
Those of us who have long worked to promote educational choice have mixed feelings when we observe the current scene. On the one hand, sprouts of educational vouchers keep breaking through the cement of teacher union opposition all over the place — the latest possibly due to sprout in the District of Columbia as we go to press, of which more later. Legal obstacles are being steadily surmounted. Public understanding and support of educational choice soars.
Milton Friedman on Vouchers
“Our goal is to have a system in which every family in the U.S. will be able to choose for itself the school to which its children go. We are far from that ultimate result. If we had that – a system of free choice – we would also have a system of competition, innovation, which would change the character of education.”
Why America Needs School Vouchers
“The major objective of educational vouchers is much more ambitious. It is to drag education out of the 19th century – here it has been mired for far too long – and into the 21st century, by introducing competition on a broad scale.”
Who Wins, Who Loses — A Look At The Future
All school age children are entitled to receive a voucher. The percentage of all students in private schools has risen from 10 percent to 30 percent, and the number of private schools has doubled. Who has benefited and who has lost from the adoption of the voucher program?
Public Schools: Make Them Private
“A greatly improved educational system can do more than anything else to limit the harm to our social stability from a permanent and large underclass.”
Milton Friedman on Busting the School Monopoly
“The only solution is to break the monopoly, introduce competition and give the customers alternatives.”
What’s Wrong With Our Schools?
Education has always been a major component of the American Dream. In Puritan New England, schools were quickly established, first as an adjunct of the church, later taken over by secular authorities.
Selling School Like Groceries: The Voucher Idea
“A fable may dramatize the true source of the nation’s present discontent with our public schools: Suppose that, 50 or 75 years ago the U.S. had adopted the same institutional arrangements for the distribution of food as it did adopt for elementary and secondary schools. Suppose, that is, that the retail provision of groceries had been nationalized, that food was paid for by taxes and distributed by government-run stores.”
Milton Friedman on Decentralizing Schools
“This is the right way to decentralize schooling, to give parents more effective control over schools, and to open up opportunities for children in the slums.”
The Role of Government in Education
The general trend in our times toward increasing intervention by the state in economic affairs has led to a concentration of attention and dispute on the areas where new intervention is proposed and to an acceptance of whatever intervention has so far occurred as natural and unchangeable. The current pause, perhaps reversal, in the trend toward collectivism offers an opportunity to re-examine the existing activities of government and to make a fresh assessment of the activities that are and those that are not justified. This paper attempts such a re-examination for education.