CGU’s Master’s in Public Policy (MPP) degree begins and ends with purpose. As an MPP student, you’ll benefit from an emphasis on social justice and human flourishing, transdisciplinarity, a customizable curriculum that aligns with your passions, and proximity to the Los Angeles metropolitan area—a living laboratory of social and economic issues.
The MPP program will challenge you to think big, but also to think practically. You’ll learn to design and implement transformative public policies, as well as fashion and invigorate institutions and partnerships. Since tomorrow’s policy challenges do not inhabit any one academic domain, you’ll work across disciplines and out into the world, and learn to combine ideas and insights in new ways that matter.
CGU’s proximity to the Los Angeles metropolitan area will give you firsthand exposure to the most pressing social and economic issues—the growth of immigrant populations, urban environmental impacts like suburban sprawl, environmental injustice, green energy infrastructure, and education reform. In the MPP program, you’ll train with some of the world’s leading experts in these areas, and you can customize your learning experience by combining core courses and electives to align your passion and purpose with pressing social problems.
Program Highlights
Design your own specialization based on your interests: urban and regional development, poverty and inequality, public health, water policy, education, international development, and more.
Pursue your MPP in conjunction with another degree. Earn a PhD in psychology or a Master’s in Public Health. Apply units from one program to the other to decrease the required total units.
Prepare yourself for a high-impact career. CGU alums work in exciting positions in government, business, and non-profits—locally, nationally, and around the world.
Racial, Ethnic & Social Minorities in American Politics
Examines the history and strategic position of minority groups in the American political system, focusing on African-Americans, Latinos, Gays, Lesbians, and Jews, to try to gain an understanding of the political history of each group.
PP 338
Policy Design and Implementation
Explores how policy analysis can help us devise better public policies—and then make them work in practice.
PP 330
Public Policy Process
Examines how policy is formed, framed, and filtered in the American political system. Various theories and models of policy making are examined and compared.
PP 309
Women & the Political Process
Provides an overview and a framework for understanding the many ways that women interact with the political system.
PP 482
Advanced Quantitative Research Methods
Examines regression analysis, focusing partly on theoretical issues and partly on practical problems in applied regression to prepare students for advanced study of econometric techniques.
SPE 315
Game Theory
Analyzes the strategic interaction between individuals, firms, governments, and other groups of people.
Curriculum
The Master of Arts in Public Policy is a 36-unit (10, 4-unit courses) degree program that builds knowledge of current government programs and debates about them. This degree can be completed in 18 months (full-time) or 2 years (part-time).
Core Courses (12 units)
Public Policy Process (4 units)
Policy Design and Implementation (4 units)
Microeconomics and Public Policy (4 units)
Practical Experience: students who do not already have experience in the governmental or nonprofit sectors must gain such experience during the MAPP. This can be done in the following two ways:
Taking a class classified as a policy clinic OR
Doing an internship with a government or nonprofit organization sector
Research Methods (12 units)
Sequence 1
Quantitative Research Methods and Data Analysis
OR
Sequence 2
Probability, Statistics, and Econometrics
Policy Analytic Methods (8 units)
2 Policy Clinic classes such as Cost-Benefit Analysis or Game Theory
Areas of Substantive Emphasis (8 units)
Students choose one of the following areas of substantive emphasis:
Evaluation in Behavioral/Organizational Science
Education
Health Policy
Diversity Policy
Student-Designed Emphasis
Faculty & Research
Heather E. Campbell
Professor, Department of Politics & Government
Field Chair, Public Policy
Research Interests
Public Policy, Urban Environmental Policy, Environmental Justice
