专业详情

Build the analytical, administrative, and leadership skills needed to make an impact. Northwestern’s master’s in public policy and administration offers a unique and comprehensive opportunity to delve into both the administrative and analytical sides of policy. This holistic approach is grounded in the perspective that policy challenges are fluid, interconnected, and global. With this perspective, graduates will have the tools needed to rise in the field and drive change at the local, national, and international levels.

Earn your master’s degree from Northwestern entirely online or with a blend of online and on-campus courses on Northwestern’s Chicago campus.

Two facets of policy, one unique program

As a master’s in public policy and administration student, you’ll build skills that are relevant to a variety of fields — public and private. You’ll earn your master’s degree in one of the only programs that focuses on both policy and administration and build the leadership, administrative, and analytical expertise needed to drive change at the local, national, and international levels.

Students in the MPPA program will:

  • Develop the skills needed to drive change in government, education, and nonprofit organizations.
  • Study under world-class faculty including Fulbright Fellows, DHS Fellows, Congressional advisors, Civitas Scholar recipients, National Institute on Aging grant recipients, among others.
  • Critically examine public organizations and leadership using the theories and concepts of collaborative systems.
  • Learn to apply methods for analyzing policies such as cost-benefit analysis, economic evaluation, and statistics.
  • Have the option to focus their studies in pursuing a specialization in Public Policy, Public Administration, Global Policy, Global Health, or Data Analytics for Public Policy.
  • Leverage the flexible curriculum to enroll in both online and on-campus courses, depending on their specialization and their schedules.

Make informed decisions using a global perspective

The master’s in public policy and administration program helps students put their analytic skills and administrative knowledge together into a new, synergistic perspective and understand how these connect to achieve global solutions in an increasingly interdependent world. The program prepares students to do the following:

  • Compare the methods international governments use to make policy decisions with the U.S. policy-making milieu.
  • Examine the effects of international organizations on world politics.
  • Collaborate with global client organizations on live projects in the MPPA Global Policy Lab. Past clients include the American Red Cross and The Urban Institute.
  • Develop a theoretical and technical understanding of demographic, economic and sociological tools.
  • Discuss the current debates surrounding topics such as world economic systems, international trade, monetary policy, and global resource allocation.