‍“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” (ESV, Matthew 16:26)

Our C9 students began their journey with the Phase 2 Virtues curriculum in Economics last semester. Every week, they write a reflection on what they’ve studied in class, always through the lens of that module’s virtue. Their final reflection of the Virtue of Economics was on the “hazard” of the virtue, and also the “harvest” of it: self-seeking and prosperity, respectively. One student’s reflection caught the eye of our faculty, as he captured the heart of why we teach the Virtues curriculum. More than that, he captured part of the reason that Excel exists in the first place. 

The question that student wrestled with?

What happens when we train people to be skilled before we train them to be good?

The Trade We Keep Making

Most education today is built around a simple transaction. You show up, you learn some skills (hopefully), and you graduate so that you can get a job. It's an efficient system, and on the surface, it makes sense — employers want competence, students want careers, skills and knowledge are the currency that connects the two.

But our student noticed something underneath that transaction: somewhere along the way, who a person becomes quietly drops out of the equation. We optimize for what someone can do and stop asking who they are and what their character is while they're doing it.

In the words of C9 student, Luke:

‍"People go to college to learn things about whatever job they'd like to go into. They don't go to have their worldview formed. This leads to people obtaining the skills they need and getting whatever job they desire, but not being virtuous in the job they have."

That gap doesn't stay theoretical for long. It shows up in concrete, recognizable places:

‍"[There are] lawyers who know the law inside and out, but use it to their advantage to help their clients win and get more money for themselves instead of using it to bring justice. Businessmen who seem to do business well, but beneath the surface are cheating and lying to make more money instead of running their business to the glory of God."

Competence has outrun character in both scenarios, and it is costly.

Why This Is Bigger Than Personal Ethics

It would be easy to file this under "individual integrity" and move on. But Luke makes a sharper claim: when enough people operate this way, it stops affecting the individual and starts becoming an economic epidemic.

An economy isn't just a system of transactions — it's a system of people, and the resources that move through it move through human hands, human decisions, human character. 

‍"Instead of resources flowing through people to benefit them and all those around them, resources get distorted and fall abandoned or are misused for selfish ends… The same resources that are running the economy are running through these people who are distorting it through their slothfulness, wastefulness, presumptuousness, stinginess, covetousness, and so on and so forth.”

Multiply that across enough lawyers, enough business owners, enough institutions, and you don't just get a few bad people. You get the slow erosion of trust and stewardship that an economy runs on.

This reframes a question we ask at Excel: is the goal of education to simply produce people who can do a job, or people of virtuous character who can be trusted with one? (It is rather difficult to do a job when you can’t show up on time for one.)

The Alternative Isn't Less Skill

What makes this reflection compelling isn't just the diagnosis. It's the redirect. In Luke’s own words:

‍"If we pursue virtue, and align ourselves with our Provider, God, then and only then can we find prosperity. Then we won't be seeking how we as individuals can excel, but how we can help our communities, our nation, our world, and most of all the Kingdom of God not just survive, but thrive."

The student doesn't argue for less skill or less ambition. The argument is for a different center of gravity entirely — one where virtue isn't a nice add-on to competence, but the very foundation for it. Luke ends it with this:

‍"Then we'll be co-laboring with our Father to bring glory to His name and beauty to this world, which ultimately leads to better lives for all mankind. That's the kind of world I'd like to live in."

The Whole Point

This is precisely why we built Excel the way we did. We believe a person's worldview — their understanding of God, of calling, of what it means to be human — has to be formed before or alongside their skill, not as an afterthought to it. We also believe virtue isn't proven in a classroom; it's proven in the pressure of a real job, with real deadlines, real money, and real people watching how you handle both.

Skill matters. We want our students to be excellent at what they do (hence a year and a half of intentional skill proficiency). But excellence without virtue just produces a faster way to do harm. The world needs more virtuous people who happen to also be competent.

Wise, mature, productive adults who flourish in all areas of life.

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This post was inspired by a student reflection written by C9 student, Luke M., for our Virtues of Economics course, part of the Core curriculum at Excel College.