Opportunities: Essay Contests 
Recommended
Student Featured in Cato Podcast
Sloane Frost is a Cato intern and a co-founder of Students For Liberty, and is currently featured in a Cato Daily Podcast discussing SFL's Bastiat Project. The Bastiat Project seeks to get resources into students’ hands so they can better understand the world around them. Frost briefly describes how the work of Frederic Bastiat, a 19th century economic journalist, very aptly applies to 21st century policy problems. Also, she describes the Bastiat Essay Contest, hosted by Students For Liberty and the Atlas Economic Research Foundation.
Win a Trip to Cato University!
As the school year concludes, so does the chance to win a scholarship to Cato University, the Cato Institute's premier educational event of the year. Cato On Campus hosts three contests -- for op-eds, videos, and college essays -- that award winners with Cato books each month and an annual shot at a trip to San Diego to hang out with Cato scholars and other liberty-loving people. The deadline to be eligible for this year's Cato University scholarship, students must submit their entries by May 16, 2010. Details can be found here.
2010 Bureaucrash Student Contest & Conference
Bureaucrash, with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, is hosting an advanced training conference for student activists. Ten students with the best response to the question: “How can students best communicate the message of liberty to the next generation?” will be invited to a two-day activism conference at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and given a $500 stipend. Also, accommodations will be provided at the The Quincy – Downtown DC Boutique Suite Hotel. Other contestants will win other prizes. Find out more details here.
Win a Ticket to the Friedman Prize event!
Cato On Campus, in partnership with Student for Liberty, is holding a student contest for two tickets to the Friedman Prize biennial dinner and award presentation. The winners of the contest will each receive a free ticket to the event, regularly sold for $500 each. Contestants should respond to the following question in 500 words or less:
"In light of the selection of Akbar Ganji for the receipt of the 2010 Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty, who would you nominate for a second prize this year and why?"
For full details, click here.
The deadline for contest submissions has been extended to April 22, 2010.
Essay Contest: 2010 Templeton Fellowships
The Independent Institute is holding its Sir John M. Templeton Essay Contest for junior faculty and students in higher education. Frederic Bastiat said,
Contestants must answer the following: Assuming Bastiat is correct, what ideas or reforms could be developed that would make people better aware that government wants to live at their expense?
Essay guidelines can be found here.
IWF Announces 2009-2010 College Essay Contest
The Independent Women's Forum is proud to announce its fifth annual college essay contest. College women enrolled in any four-year college or university during the 2009-2010 school year are invited to enter this competition. IWF will award more than $10,000 and grant national exposure to winners’ writings.
This year, students are asked to answer this question in 750 words or less: "Many campus coffee shops boast that they "proudly serve fair trade coffee," but does the fair trade movement actually make a difference in the lives of the poor and disadvantaged? Is free trade also fair trade?"
Bastiat Prize for Journalism
The prize was developed to encourage and reward writers whose published works promote the institutions of a free society: limited government, rule of law brokered by an independent judiciary, protection of private property, free markets, free speech, and sound science.
First Do No Harm Video Contest
The Galen Institute has just released its new First Do No Harm Video Contest to highlight the benefits of free market health care and the dangers of government provided health care. Send a creative video debunking the myths about government health care and compete for the $3,000 grand prize (2nd prize is $1,000; 3rd place receives $500)!
Stop Spending Our Future Contests
"Our children deserve to inherit prosperity, not debt. The root of our current economic crisis is over-spending. Politicians have spent beyond Americans' means; they have subsidized private citizens and companies to do the same. Over the last years and decades, as personal and public savings rates plummeted, we lived it up: buying, borrowing and gambling our future away." Enter one of three contests about the burden that future generations will bear for spending today: Video Testimonials, Write a Letter, or Give It a Name.
Don Lavoie Memorial Graduate Student Essay Competition
The Society for the Development of Austrian Economics is pleased to announce that submissions for the 2008 Don Lavoie Memorial Graduate Student Essay Competition are now being accepted.
IHS High School Essay Contest
The Institute for Humane Studies is pleased to announce their first annual essay contest for high school seniors, with a chance to win $3000 in prizes. The essay topic is George Orwell's Animal Farm.
The Bastiat Prize for Journalism
"The prize was developed to encourage and reward writers whose published works promote the institutions of a free society: limited government, rule of law brokered by an independent judiciary, protection of private property, free markets, free speech, and sound science."
Cato.ru Launches Russian Essay Contest
Cato.Ru launches an essay contest for students and recent graduates. Participants are invited to submit their essays on various problems in the area of property rights. Essays must be submitted in Russian (NO English submissions accepted).
Essay Contest: The Benefits of a Free Market Economy
The Association of Private Enterprise Education invites students 25 years and younger to submit essays on one of three topics. Cash awards totaling over $6,000 will be distributed among the top four finalists!
IHS Academic Writing Competition
Undergrads: $2,000 in prizes for the best undergraduate submissions on the topic of progress, prosperity, and human flourishing. Grads:Recognizing the best published and unpublished work by graduate students on progress, prosperity, and human flourishing. $2,000 in prizes and the possibility of presenting research at the 2008 Social Change Workshop.
Mont Pelerin Society Hayek Essay Contest
Take part in an essay competition with one of the oldest and most influential classical liberal organizations in the world. Winners receive a travel/registration grant to participate in the next meeting!
International Policy Network Bastiat Prize
The Bastiat Prize for Journalism was inspired by the 19th-century French philosopher and journalist Frédéric Bastiat. The prize was developed to encourage and reward writers whose published works eloquently and wittily elucidate the institutions of a free society: limited government, rule of law brokered by an independent judiciary, protection of private property, free markets, free speech, and sound science.