Jay Cost, PhD joins the Geneva College faculty as assistant professor of political science. Cost has a PhD and a master’s in political science from the University of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree in government and history from the University of Virginia. He has spent twenty years writing broadly on American politics for a general audience, and recently taught high school social studies for seven years at Portersville Christian School in Portersville, PA.

Cost’s research is focused on republican political thought, particularly debates during the period of the American Founding and early party conflict. He has published six books, including: Democracy or Republic: The People and the Constitution (AEI Press, 2026); James Madison: America’s First Politician (Basic Books, 2021); and The Price of Greatness: Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and the Creation of American Oligarchy (Basic Books, 2018). He is currently writing a book on the Jeffersonian Republican Party, to be published by the University Press of Kansas.

Cost is a member of All Saints Anglican Church in Cranberry Township, PA.