For the past century, the New School produced iconoclastic thinkers. Now it is finding that idealism is very expensive. : For the past century, the New School produced iconoclastic thinkers. Now it is finding that idealism is very expensive. In 1918, as another pandemic roared through the country, now entering its second year at war, a group of prominent intellectuals drafted a proposal for a new kind of university in Manhattan, one that would break with hundreds of years of tradition in higher learning.