Public and Nonprofit Management and Policy (MPA)

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Program Description

Gain practical experience in public service with NYC as your urban laboratory. 

How will you shape your impact in public service in five or ten years? It's almost impossible to say. The boundaries between roles and sectors are blurring, and to be effective, you'll need a broad education and a firm grasp of how skills and ideas translate across varying real-world contexts. With NYU Wagner's interdisciplinary MPA-PNP coursework in finance, policy, and management, you'll be prepared to address the most pressing issues of our time in the many fields, sectors, and policy arenas that your career will span.

What is an MPA Degree?

A Master of Public Administration (MPA) degree is earned with graduate-level training that prepares students for meaningful work in public service, government, nonprofit organizations, and related fields.

Programs typically cover wide-ranging subjects, including public policy, management, finance, economics, ethics, and organizational behavior.

NYU Wagner's MPA-PNP creates leaders through an interdisciplinary curriculum that combines finance, policy, and management in the vibrant backdrop of New York City.

Program Highlights

  • Convenience & Flexibility. Our program offers flexible scheduling for both full-time and part-time students, with start terms available in both the Fall and Spring. Full-time students who begin in the Fall can complete the program in as little as two years. Part-time students typically finish in three to four years.
  • Real-World Experience. A year-long capstone project is the pinnacle of your graduate experience, offering an opportunity to apply your skills and knowledge to real-world challenges. Collaborating with peers and expert faculty mentors, you'll approach pressing issues facing communities locally and globally.
  • Distinguished Faculty. Learn from premier scholars in a variety of disciplines, including economics, finance, management, political science, law, planning, and healthcare. These highly-accomplished industry leaders will prepare you to effectively address issues across sectors and policy arenas.
  • Tangible Career Outcomes. MPA graduates work in government agencies, non-profits, international organizations, corporate social responsibility departments, and a multitude of other sectors. That includes organizations ranging from the American Red Cross, APCO Worldwide, Ernst & Young, Everytown for Gun Safety, NY Green Bank, United Nations, and the U.S. House of Representatives.

Specializations

The Public and Nonprofit Management and Policy MPA offers the following specializations:

Advocacy and Political Action

The Advocacy and Political Action specialization prepares you to magnify your impact and create meaningful change in the civic engagement, political, and advocacy arenas. Whether your passion for social justice and human rights is in immigration, criminal justice, food security, the environment, or any other issue, you’ll need to expand your skillset and learn the strategies and tactics to successfully mobilize people, organizations, and systems.

You’ll jump right into studying advocacy and organizing, while building on your strong foundation in management, finance, and policy from your core coursework. You can develop deep knowledge in the specific issue area you most care about through a variety of electives, and understand how to apply your learnings to issue campaigns, grassroots organizing, lobbying, and political campaigns. You’ll hit the ground running, bringing your skills to the field through Advocacy Lab and Capstone—working with real-world organizations.

You’ll graduate prepared to organize members of your community, lead a nonprofit issue advocacy campaign, run for elected office, and be a catalyst for positive change around the world.

Financial Management and Public Finance

The Finance specialization prepares you for a career planning and managing organizational resources across the nonprofit, public, and private sectors. The program combines theory with skill-based tools and frameworks so that students graduate with the knowledge and experience that are prerequisites for a successful career.

In public service organizations, finance is practiced though both a management and policy lens. That's why in this specialization you’ll study the field of finance from both an internal managerial perspective (financial management) and an external policy perspective (public finance). Students interested in a deep dive into one or the other are encouraged to explore a focus area. You’ll learn an array of analytical tools: economics, budgeting, financial accounting, capital financing, investment management, debt management, and financial statement analysis. When you graduate, you'll be ready to fill a wide range of roles—our graduates are budget analysts, consultants, finance directors, grants managers, program auditors, hospital administrators, bond raters, and more.

International Development Policy and Management

A career in international development or other global fields requires a broad understanding of international institutions, economics and politics, but some people with specific interests or career aspirations may wish to gain a deeper understanding of particular sub-fields.  Accordingly, there are a number of relevant areas that Wagner offers greater depth in through regular course offerings, including economic growth and inequality, organizations and management in international contexts, international public and social finance, environment and sustainability, human rights and humanitarian aid, global health and food security, and global governance.  A few of these areas cover broad territory and are further organized into more refined clusters of courses.

Management and Leadership

The specialization in Management and Leadership gives you the practical knowledge and applied skills necessary to effectively lead and manage organizations from nonprofits and public agencies to global institutions and private corporations with a social mission.

Today's complex and interconnected world demands that public service leaders ignite innovative thinking, initiate transformational change, and drive collective action. From strategically positioning your organization to managing its day-to-day footprint, you’ll need a unique blend of both management and leadership skills to make an impact.

Public Policy Analysis

The Public Policy Specialization gives you tools play a leading role in creating, advocating for, and evaluating policies that better serve the public good, whether from within government, nonprofit organizations, or private sector firms that work adjacent to the public sector.   

You'll learn the analytical skills and frameworks you’ll need to design and assess policy responses to important public issues, and will have the option to deepen your quantitative skills. You’ll graduate ready to address big questions: Which public policies are doing what they're designed to do, and which could do their job better? How can cities create and implement policies for growth and development? What are the next steps to reducing poverty? Which policies are most effective at minimizing racial disparities? How can education policy improve the performance and equity of US educational systems?

Social Impact, Innovation, and Investment

The Social Impact, Innovation, and Investment (SI3) specialization provides students with the training to practice across sectors (private, nonprofit and public) as agents of social change. By learning the language and tools of both business and policy, you will be able to innovate products, services, delivery systems, enterprises, and investment approaches necessary to improve lives and solve major domestic and global challenges. You will also be uniquely qualified to assess and measure the social impact that arises from these innovative approaches. Students in the specialization are provided a foundation with required courses traversing ideation, entrepreneurship, and social finance. 

Graduates will be prepared to enter the burgeoning social innovation sector as social entrepreneurs, impact investors, impact measurement specialists, corporate social responsibility managers, and a variety of consultant or for-profit and nonprofit management roles where the combined tools of seeking both financial return and social impact are becoming increasingly important.

Admissions

Submit your online application along with two essays (with an optional video essay), a resume or curriculum vitae, two letters of recommendation from academic or professional sources, transcripts from all institutions attended, and standardized test scores if applicable. You will also need to submit the $85 application fee and review any additional requirements specific to international applicants. 

To make sure you have everything you need, we created a complete application checklist.

Dual-Degree Options

You can earn the Public and Nonprofit Management and Policy MPA alongside a second NYU graduate degree in one of the dual-degree programs listed below. Please note that entry to a dual-degree program requires separate application and admission to each participating school.