The Ford School is America's first graduate public service training program and among its most prominent. We're making a real and lasting difference in the world through game-changing discoveries; actionable policy solutions; rigorous, applied courses; and our powerful and growing network of alumni.
CURRICULUM
The Ford School is known for its strength in quantitative analysis of policy issues, economic policy, and social policy. The school is increasingly recognized for its policy–relevant research and action on education policy and energy and environmental policy.
Our Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy is a liberal arts degree, based in the social sciences, that gives students the substantive knowledge and analytical skills needed to understand policy problems—and help create solutions. Students work with some of the University's most outstanding faculty members—in classes that average just 24 students. In addition to their core coursework, bachelor's students choose focus areas—Middle Eastern policy, energy policy, U.S. foreign policy, and more--for intensive study and exploration.
Our Master of Public Policy and Master of Public Affairs curriculum emphasizes research, analytic, and management skills that are highly transferable across sectors, issue areas, and geographical regions—all offered with an applied approach to policy training, providing hands-on learning around real-world problems. All MPP students are required to participate in a policy-relevant internship in the summer between their first and second year of study. In the summer of 2016, 23 percent interned in Washington, DC; 18 percent at an international organization; and the rest in cities across the U.S.
Our joint-doctoral program—in which candidates combine their public policy studies with disciplinary work in economics, political science, or sociology—represents a unique approach. Pioneered here at the University of Michigan in 2001, the model is still shared with just a handful of other universities. All of our doctoral students complete a PhD in one of the University of Michigan's world-class social sciences, becoming full members of their disciplinary departments through a rigorous sequence of theory and methods courses. In addition, students become active participants in the Ford School's interdisciplinary and engaged public policy community.
