So much comes down to money--and so few of us have any clue whatsoever about how money really works. I'm among the ignorant--knowing just enough to know that I know very little indeed. But I'm like most of us. And it's been interesting to watch certain economic discussions unfold--about, for example, what Harvard should or should not be doing with its huge endowment; or about universal health care (which we can't begin to afford, but which we continue to see as a panacea); or about the capital gains tax (which Obama would raise without understanding)--when you can recognize both your own ignorance about economics and the ignorance of many who are influential in shaping national discussions about money. Everybody thinks he is an authority on how money ought to be managed and spent. But few of us really understand what money is, how it works, or what kinds of consequences can come from certain kinds of financial decisions.

And small wonder. Very few of us have ever studied economics. And the problem is so big that it's not even on the radar. You hear so much about how our educational system is shortchanging students when it comes to math, science, civics, and history. But you never hear about the crippling effects of ignorance about money and economies. Colleges and universities, as ACTA observed in a 2004 study, don't require students to study it--not even those rare schools with a solid core curriculum.

This is the flip side of the problem produced by academe's broadly socialist monoculture--there is a great deal of friendliness, explicit and tacit, to such things as collectivism and cooperation, redistribution of wealth, government-run social programs, single-payer health care, and so on. There is likewise a broad hostility to capitalism and free market principles. But these leanings are rarely undergirded with a grasp of economic facts or realities. And that's a calculated gap. You don't have to look hard at all to find colleges and universities that press students, in course after course, to make moral determinations about how economies ought to be run--but you would be hard pressed to find a school that requires students to ground those determinations in actual economic knowledge.

It's fun and instructive to see exceptions to the rule, and to locate thought experiments that have managed to institutionalize themselves. Take Guatemala's Francisco Marroquin University:

Leftist ideology may be gaining ground in Latin America. But it will never set foot on the manicured lawns of Francisco Marroquin University.

For nearly 40 years, this private college has been a citadel of laissez-faire economics. Here, banners quoting "The Wealth of Nations" author Adam Smith -- he of the powdered wig and invisible hand -- flutter over the campus food court.

Every undergraduate, regardless of major, must study market economics and the philosophy of individual rights embraced by the U.S. founding fathers, including "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

A sculpture commemorating Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" is affixed to the school of business. Students celebrated the novel's 50th anniversary last year with an essay contest. The $200 cash prize reinforced the book's message that society should reward capitalist go-getters who create wealth and jobs, not punish them with taxes and regulations.

"The poor are not poor just because others are rich," said Manuel Francisco Ayau Cordon, a feisty octogenarian businessman, staunch anti-communist and founder of the school. "It's not a zero-sum game."

Welcome to Guatemala's Libertarian U. Ayau opened the college in 1972, fed up with what he viewed as the "socialist" instruction being imparted at San Carlos University of Guatemala, the nation's largest institution of higher learning. He named the new school for a colonial-era priest who worked to liberate native Guatemalans from exploitation by Spanish overlords.

Ayau believed universities should stay out of politics and "place themselves beyond the conflicts of their time." Easier said than done, considering that at the time, Guatemala was under military rule and in the midst of a civil war.

A CIA-backed coup in 1954 had toppled the country's democratically elected president, Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. His proposal to redistribute unoccupied land to peasants infuriated the nation's largest landowner, U.S.-based United Fruit Co., and stoked fears in Washington that Guatemala would become a Soviet satellite. Arbenz's ouster unleashed a bloody internal conflict that lasted nearly four decades.

Whereas San Carlos University actively aided leftist guerrillas, Francisco Marroquin preached the sanctity of private property rights and the rule of law. The cheeky Ayau chose red as the school's official color "on the theory that it had been expropriated by the communists and we shouldn't cede them exclusivity." He wore a bulletproof vest under his academic gown at the first graduation ceremony.

Tensions have mellowed since peace accords were signed in 1996. The same cannot be said of Ayau, whose nicknames include "the curmudgeon" and "Muso," short for the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. His once-ragtag school now ranks among the finest in Central America. And he continues to irritate diverse factions of this impoverished nation with his unshakable faith in free markets, personal liberty, small government and his insistence on "no privileges for anybody."

Some leftists deride him as a lackey of the ruling classes, dishing up neo-liberal dogma to rich kids in a nation where a few powerful families still call most of the shots. Conservative elites chafe at his op-ed harangues about their cozy oligopolies and government protections.

Ayau delights at the potshots coming his way from both ends of the political spectrum: They signal that someone is listening.

"Ideas are powerful," he crowed recently, showing a visitor an auditorium named for the late American free-market economist Milton Friedman. "We're making progress."

Ayau's unflagging passions have turned Guatemala into an unlikely whistle-stop for all manner of capitalist luminaries.

Friedman, the University of Chicago economist, was one of four Nobel laureates in economics to have lectured at Francisco Marroquin. The school has bestowed honorary doctorates on billionaire publisher Steve Forbes and T.J. Rogers, the swashbuckling chief executive of Cypress Semiconductor Corp.

John Stossel, co-anchor of ABC News' "20/20," was honored this year on campus, as much for his ideology as his Emmy awards. An avowed libertarian, Stossel got a warm reception for his discourse against government regulation.

"We celebrate the message that this university teaches because economic freedom makes everybody's life better," Stossel said to rousing applause.

No matter that Francisco Marroquin has made little headway in its own backyard.

Today, more than half of Guatemala's population of 13 million lives in poverty. Namibia and Botswana rank higher than Guatemala on the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom. Guatemala is one of the most corrupt nations in the hemisphere, according to Transparency International, a nongovernmental organization. Land ownership is concentrated in few hands. Key industries such as sugar are controlled by powerful oligopolies that saddle poor consumers with high prices.

"They are insatiable," Ayau said.

Still, Ayau points to a few small victories. Francisco Marroquin graduates were among the key architects of the 1996 deregulation of Guatemala's telecommunications industry. The country now boasts a competitive sector with some of the lowest rates in Latin America. About three-quarters of the population have mobile phones.

Francisco Marroquin "is like this little gem in the middle of this region," said Donald Boudreaux, a George Mason University economist who has lectured at the university. "It has a sterling reputation."

[...]

They founded Francisco Marroquin in 1971 and began classes a year later with 40 students in a rented house.

Enrollment is now at 2,700, and the university offers 18 degree programs, including journalism, architecture and medicine, on a beautiful, modern campus.

All students speak English. Entrance requirements are stiff. So is tuition. At $8,000 a year for some programs (more than three times the annual gross national per capita income), it's the priciest university in Guatemala. University President Giancarlo Ibarguen said the sum was justified by the good job offers graduates receive.

There are no sports teams and no affirmative action in hiring or admissions. Instructors can forget about tenure; there is none. Ditto for the protests and sit-ins that are common in public universities in Latin America. If Francisco Marroquin students are unhappy with the product they're getting, they're free to take their business elsewhere.

"If you don't like Macy's, you go to Gimbels," Ayau said.