CSMGEP Profiles: Omari Swinton
Supporting Students
Most economists take a while to find their way to the profession, but Omari Swinton was steeped in it right from the start.
His father was a Ph.D. economist, professor, and college president, so Swinton had a front-row seat to academia from a young age. “I grew up helping him do data entry,” Swinton recalls. “I would read him numbers and help him with his work occasionally.”
So Swinton knew early on that economics, teaching, and research was a life he could embrace, and he found his professional home quickly, too. Now 46, he has spent his whole career at Howard University — the only HBCU offering a doctorate degree in economics. Swinton is professor, chair, and graduate studies program director in Howard’s economics department.
He started his studies at Florida A&M University, enticed by academics but also by the opportunity to be in the HBCU’s legendary marching band, in which he played sousaphone. It might sound like he was laser-focused, but like any teenager, some things slipped by him. Like registering for classes on time his freshman year.
With the usual freshman-level classes full, he was forced into upper-level classes, including an employment personnel law class. It wasn’t a great fit for his career goals, but it was a lucky break: Swinton needed a job, and the professor also happened to be general counsel for FAMU. Thanks to a connection from that professor, Swinton found himself with a job that gave him a valuable, practical foundation for his economic studies: “I was the assistant to the comptroller when I was an undergraduate student,” he says.
After FAMU, Swinton continued his studies at Duke University, earning a master’s degree and Ph.D., then embarked on his career at Howard. Much of his research there has focused on HBCUs. In one key study, Swinton and his collaborators compared data from African American students when they were in high school with their outcomes in college. They found that students who attended HBCUs, as opposed to predominantly white institutions (or PWIs), were more likely to graduate.
Swinton’s own experience as an undergraduate at an HBCU speaks to the factors at work in in that finding.
“I think it gave me an environment to allow me to grow as a scholar,” he says. “And the faculty members there actually cared about me, which I think is an important aspect of college. Especially when you're young and you're not exactly sure what you want to do with your life.”
In addition to academic papers, Swinton co-authored a book in 2023, Vital and Valuable: The Relevance of HBCUs to American Life and Education, that examines HBCUs in terms of where they are in the framework of higher education and what the future holds for them.
He sees higher education in general, and HBCUs in particular, at a crossroads because of the political environment and an anticipated drop in the number of potential students as population trends continue downward.
“There’s going to be a lot more competition for a smaller number of students,” he explains. And not all of those students who make it to college end up graduating. Much of his recent research focuses on how to improve graduation rates, particularly via college choice.
“If a student could have a better fit in their choice of college, that would increase the likelihood that they graduate,” he says, “which is hopefully the point of what the institution is doing as a whole.”
Swinton’s latest project is assessing the impacts of the AEA’s Summer Training Program and Scholarship Program, which he directed during its five years at Howard. (Starting in 2026, the two-month residential program has shifted to American University.) It’s a program he knows from just about every angle: He was a student in the program in 2001, then a teaching assistant and instructor. He’s optimistic about how well the program fulfilled its mission of preparing undergraduates for doctoral study in economics while it was at Howard.
“I think we made some innovations in the program that hopefully will lead to a larger percent of the students who could participate in the program actually going on to get their Ph.D.,” he says. “So we’ll see. In maybe 10 years, we'll look back and see a lot of people who came to the summer program at Howard earning their Ph.D. We have a decent number of people who are in graduate programs now.”
Among the innovations to the program in the last few years was a new experiential learning component that paired students with working economists during the summer. With Howard’s location in the heart of Washington, D.C., students could find plentiful partners doing meaningful work to which they could contribute.
Swinton is optimistic that the students who went through the Summer Training Program will go far in the profession, and he’s got a good feeling about the future of the profession more broadly, too.
With today’s tools, he sees undergraduates being able to do data analysis and other research that was out of reach to budding economists when he was in college. “It just amazes me the kind of quality research they can do,” Swinton says.
“It’s impressive and encouraging that there’s a group of people coming along who are going to ask different and interesting questions and have that passion for economics. That’s what makes me the most excited.”
Proust Questionnaire
A salon and parlor game of the 19th century made famous by Marcel Proust’s answers, the Proust Questionnaire (adapted here) gets to the heart of things ...
What’s on your nightstand?
Glasses
What is an ideal day?
Spending time with my family
What job would you want to have, if you weren't an economist?
Lawyer
What trait do you deplore in other people?
Dishonesty
What trait do you most admire in people?
Loyalty
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
OK
Which talent would you most like to have?
I wish I could sing.
What is your most treasured possession?
2000 Ford Mustang GT
What is your favorite extravagance?
Hennessy XO
Mountain or beach vacation?
Beach
Maynard Keynes or Milton Friedman?
Neither
What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done?
Get a Ph.D.