A Master of Public Administration degree prepares people for careers in government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and businesses that work closely with governments. Public administrators manage nearly every aspect of public service at the federal, state and local levels. They are responsible for providing services, setting and implementing policies, and evaluating social programs, which gives them many powerful opportunities to help shape the future.
To prepare students for these responsibilities and challenges, MPA courses usually include a variety of professionally-focused, interdisciplinary subjects fields such as economics, sociology, law, anthropology, political science, and regional planning so that MPA graduates will be able to draw on a comprehensive set of skills and knowledge covering numerous topics and disciplines that are relevant to the public sector.
A core curriculum of a typical MPA program usually includes courses on microeconomics, public finance, research methods and statistics, policy process and policy analysis, public financial management, managerial accounting, leadership, planning, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), administrative theory & practice, organizational behavior and change, legal and political context of public management, public human resources management, ethical considerations for public administration, and program evaluation/performance measurement.
Typical areas of specialization for students pursuing an MPA degree may include nonprofit management, local government management, budgeting & finance, and human resources management, urban planning, emergency management, transportation, health care (especially public health), economic development, urban management, community development, education, non-profits, information technology, environmental policy, cultural policy, and criminal justice.
The broad scope of an MPA degree is therefore valuable preparation for many supervisory, managerial, analyst, and support-staff positions. And students who receive this degree can look forward to successful careers at all levels of government, as well as for promotion, lateral transfers, and career changes across the public, nonprofit, and private sectors. For example, a graduate with an MPA degree may start their career as a fundraiser for a charity, and later join the staff of a government or foundation grantor.
The MPA program prepares individuals to serve as managers in the executive arm of local, state/provincial, and federal/national government, as well as in nongovernmental organization (NGO) and nonprofit sectors; it places a focus on the systematic investigation of executive organization and management. Typical jobs for MPA graduates include being a city manager and overseeing most areas of a city bureaucracy, such as personnel, finance, policy, planning, development, and other departments. And city planners usually combine their MPA training with an engineering degree so that they can design just about everything from buildings to public parks and greenspaces.
Graduates with an MPA can also work outside of government as executive directors for a variety of non-profits and associations like small trade groups. In these jobs, the MPA training is used to oversee programs, advance policy and work cooperatively with government agencies.
A graduate with an advanced degree in public administration may also pursue a career in social work, overseeing social services agencies, such as foster care or drug rehabilitation organizations and charities.
And finally, many graduates with an MPA go to work for the federal government where they work for congressional representatives, analyze budgets, develop and implement policy, and even run government agencies.
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