Residential MPA

Are you ready to build leadership and strategy skills required for addressing complex policy challenges and improving lives? The Brooks School offers an interdisciplinary, Ivy League MPA degree that can launch or accelerate your mission-driven career across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.

Smiling woman student sitting outside in front of a large metal world sculpture — Juliet Jordan MPA ’22

Concentrations

Economic and Financial Policy

Explore how public policy affects economic and financial decision making in international organizations, federal/state/local offices, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector.

Economic and Financial Policy Concentration

Environmental Policy

Master an understanding of economic, social, political, technical, and legal issues shaping the future of our natural environment.

Environmental Policy Concentration

Government, Politics, and Policy Studies

Develop an advanced understanding of how politics and political management intersect with policy processes, program development, and resource management in the public sector.

Government, Politics, and Policy Studies Concentration

Human Rights and Social Justice

Students study policies that support the expansion of human rights and the elimination of all forms of discrimination, such as those based on gender, race, class, religion, ethnicity, caste, sexual orientation, disability, or marital status both domestically and internationally.

Human Rights and Social Justice Concentration

International Development

Students can explore international development concerns using a range of interdisciplinary perspectives and methods including anthropology, demography, economics, regional planning, sociology, biotechnology, and legal studies.

International Development Concentration

Public and Nonprofit Management

In this concentration, students acquire a strong set of budgeting, investment, debt financing, and data-driven analytical skills as well as managerial skills including negotiations, leadership, staffing, and compensation.

Public and Nonprofit Management Concentration

Science, Technology, and Infrastructure Policy

Developing the knowledge and skills to work in policy/project analysis, project planning, implementation (including financing and construction) and operations in the areas of science, technology, and infrastructure policy.

Science, Technology, and Infrastructure Policy Concentration

Social Policy

Learn the tools and policy history necessary to design, manage, and evaluate programs. Those may include programs in health, nutrition, education, poverty alleviation, aging, and criminal justice.

Social Policy Concentration

I came to the MPA Program with the career goal of serving in a federal government agency, so that I could help underserved communities in the U.S. and/or abroad. The Washington Externship program gave me the opportunity to work with Foreign Affairs and Foreign Service Officers at the State Department—people who formulated policies to fight human trafficking and poverty, and promoted economic development and adapted to political changes within the Western Hemisphere.

– Mauricio Cortes ’17

Benefits of Getting an MPA at the Brooks School

Grounded in experiential learning

This is a degree where you make an immediate impact through consulting/advisory opportunities, internships, externships, graduate certificates, and capstone projects.

Get your foot in the door

Career management and professional development starts before you step foot on campus to help you connect with our alumni community and network with cutting edge organizations in the field.

Complicated public policy problems don’t wait

Public policy challenges don’t wait for the sharpest minds in the field to finish graduate programs; spend a semester off-campus living, working, and making an impact in real-time as part of a rigorous externship semester program.

The biggest policy challenges we face are inherently interdisciplinary

The biggest public policy challenges we face as a global community, including climate change, poverty, and inequality are inherently multifaceted. With an interdisciplinary curriculum, our students have access to faculty and practitioners across Cornell.

Our beautiful campus is located in Ithaca, New York

Our program is located in one of the best college towns in the nation; Ithaca, New York. Enjoy a higher quality of living in the scenic Finger Lakes Region, a diverse community, and dynamic downtown.