The MPP curriculum will broaden your perspective and sharpen skills to prepare you for a successful career in public service.
The first year of the MPP Program focuses on the cross-disciplinary fundamentals of policy design, analysis, and implementation. You will take core courses to develop professional competencies in economics, ethics, financial management, negotiation, policy design and delivery, politics, quantitative analysis, and applied history.
Most first-year MPP students take 38 credits, which consists of 18 core course credits in the fall and 16 core course credits in the spring. Many students also begin taking elective courses in the spring of their first year.
The first-year MPP curriculum culminates in the Spring Exercise, a two-week simulation that applies the tools and concepts of the first-year core to a real-world, real-time policy issue.
During the Exercise, you are assigned to a five-person team tasked with forging solutions to a deliberately tough challenge. You’ll conduct research, attend sessions and presentations that link the topic to your core courses, and work with your team to prepare a package of policy and management recommendations.
While it isn’t a formal requirement, most MPP students take on a policy-oriented internship during the summer after the first year. You’ll apply what you’ve learned in class to gain deeper insights; use new skills; and face challenges in different professional areas, policy fields, or parts of the world.
You’ll use your remaining credits to take elective courses that align with your academic interests and professional goals.
As a complement to the MPP core curriculum, you will also choose a Policy Area of Concentration (PAC) in one of the following areas:
The Policy Analysis Exercise (PAE) is the capstone of the MPP experience.
The PAC Seminars familiarize you with key issues and policy debates in your particular area and guide you through the PAE writing process. Once you declare your PAE topic, you will be assigned a faculty advisor with the expertise to help you succeed.
During the PAE, you develop solutions for a policy or management problem that your client—a public or nonprofit organization—is grappling with. You and your client work together to scope the problem, examine the context, gather data, formulate and evaluate options, and make actionable recommendations. The final analysis—usually around 40 pages or 10,000 words—gives you the opportunity to integrate the technical skills and specialized knowledge you have gained from the MPP curriculum while also helping your client organization create public value.
The MPP Program consists of four semesters of full-time coursework in residence at HKS.
To graduate, you must:
You might consider pursuing a second degree jointly or concurrently if you’re interested in how the world’s challenges can be addressed at the intersection of public policy and business, law, medicine, design, or other fields.
Pursuing a joint or concurrent degree reduces coursework and residency requirements and makes it possible to earn two degrees in a shorter amount of time.
As an MPP studen
To apply to the MPP Program, you must have:
Work experience is not strictly required but is an advantage for admission, and more importantly, for making the most of the MPP experience. Incoming MPP students typically have 2-3 years of professional work experience.
A complete application to the MPP Program includes:
There is one admission application deadline and one start date for each degree program per year. You may apply to only one master's degree program per admissions cycle.
| QS 综合 | 院校 | 学制 | 学费 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 第 4 位 | 牛津大学University of Oxford | 1年 | 54650英镑/年 |
| 第 10 位 | 新加坡国立大学National University of Singapore | 2年 | 48134新币/年 |
| 第 16 位 | 耶鲁大学Yale University | 1年 | 56,800美元/年 |
| 第 20 位 | 加州大学伯克利分校University of California, Berkeley | 2年 | 21991美元/学期 |
| 第 24 位 | 芝加哥大学University of Chicago | 2年 | 23406美元/学期 |
| 第 27 位 | 普林斯顿大学Princeton University | 一年 | 60410美元 |
| 第 28 位 | 悉尼大学The University of Sydney | 2年 | 56800澳元/年 |
| 第 29 位 | 澳大利亚国立大学Australian National University | 2年 | 56120澳元/年 |