MPP, MPA career tracks

The Kennedy School of Government boasts an impressive list of notable alumni, including foreign presidents and prime ministers. In the U.S., however, few members of Congress and other federal officials hold degrees from the Kennedy School or have degrees from other schools in public policy or public administration.

Congress members and higher-level officials tend to enter the political business with degrees in law or political science, although a few bureaucrats do have technical degrees and expertise in their specific policy areas.

Take President Bush’s Cabinet, for example. Of the 15 department secretaries, the directors of the Office of Management and Budget and the Environmental Protection Agency, the White House chief of staff and the U.S. Trade Representative, only one has a degree in public policy or administration: Susan Schwab, the trade representative, who received her Ph.D. in public administration from George Washington University.

Of this group, seven hold law degrees, three have B.A.s in political science, and four have MBAs. Among other high-level bureaucrats in the Cabinet, such as assistant secretaries, few, if any, have Master of Public Policy (MPP) or Master of Public Administration (MPA) degrees. Only among their associates and other mid-level bureaucrats are there more of these degrees. For example, in one Department of Education office, three of the five associate assistant deputy secretaries or top directors hold an MPP or MPA.

The career advice for aspiring politicians is clear: A law degree is the way to go, though there is some room for those with MPPs and MPAs on the appointed track.

But could the U.S. government use more officials with these degrees? What do public policy and public administration degrees have to offer lawmakers and bureaucrats in terms of professional development that these other degrees do not?

Most MPA programs focus on program implementation and MPP programs require experience with statistics and quantitative methods in addition. According to the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA), an MPP degree “emphasizes analyzing and evaluating information,” and often requires heavy coursework in “statistics and data analysis, public finance, microeconomics and macroeconomics, research design, program evaluation, [and] public policy.”

The skills and knowledge derived from this degree are significant to creating successful public policy, and these skills could not be more critical today — a time in which everything is data-driven.

“We have lots of data now,” Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings said recently at a policy roundtable. “We have to use information in a data-driven way.”

In the case of the Education Department, some of this data is used to determine the success and progress of students under No Child Left Behind programs, many of which will surely be questioned as the bill comes up for reauthorization in the next few months.

Some feel, however, that data and research are not used enough to influence education policy. The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) held an event recently to address the growing “frustration among researchers and reformers that … research too rarely influences policy or public understanding” of education issues.

However, according to AEI Scholar Frederick M. Hess, who hosted Monday’s event, MPPs often add little value to those who obtain them and do little to ameliorate the problem.

“I think many observers would agree that it’s a question of credential inflation,” Hess told The Hill. “For many, the skills they develop in an MPP program are not fundamentally unlike those they’d learn in an undergraduate education.”

According to Hess, an MPP is a great way to meet people and to stand out on a resume. “Much of the value is in the credentials and contacts,” he said. “Most applicants for a Hill job have impressive resumes; an MPP can help to set someone apart.”

In a renowned MPP program, such as the Kennedy School’s, individuals do develop “specific and useful” skills and particular knowledge of quantitative analysis, and it is clear that for government these skills can be essential. Hess believes, however, that many institutions run MPP programs simply to make money.

“Whether having a lot of MPPs running around the government adds value is an open question,” he said.

Kenneth Juster, the U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce for Industry and Security during President Bush’s first term, does believe that more MPPs from strong programs would be helpful.

Juster holds both a law degree and an MPP from Harvard University. Although his MPP coursework included statistics and quantitative analysis, he says that those skills were not as key as some others for his government work.

“My MPP was instrumental in providing me with public management and organizational analysis skills,” he said. “It also helped me to appreciate the governmental process and how to navigate through that process to achieve desired policy outcomes.”

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