The David Gergen Summer Fellowship Program is a highly competitive program that supports trailblazing public service and leadership opportunities, enabling a select number of HKS students to gain meaningful, practical, hands-on experience and develop important networks through summer internships in government or nonprofit service.
By Rohit Kataria
Raised in the rural Appalachian town of Wheelersburg, Ohio, I am guided by the belief that equitable access to learning, in all forms, is necessary for collective human flourishing. My academic journey began at Vanderbilt University, where I earned a BA in Public Policy Studies with a concentration in advanced quantitative methods. To deepen my policy and analytical skillset, I came to the Kennedy School as an MPP student, where I am supported by a John F. Kennedy Fellowship and a Program on Education Policy and Governance Fellowship. I am also fortunate enough to have spent the last few months working at the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education (DHE) as a Gergen Summer Fellow through the Center for Public Leadership. My experience at the DHE strengthened my commitment to building a world where every student, regardless of socioeconomic, geographic, or racial background, has equal opportunities for a quality higher education.
This summer, I served as a graduate policy analyst intern in the DHE’s Office of Research and Planning under the direction of Dr. Mario Delci. My work centered around one question: What is the public return on state investments in public higher education in Massachusetts? To address this question, I developed a model that estimated the higher tax revenues and local consumer spending associated with attending one of Massachusetts’ public institutions of higher education. I also built companion models to measure the relationship between increased higher education and decreased usage of public assistance, increased civic participation, and higher rates of volunteerism. I compiled my analyses into a policy report, the findings from which I presented to department leadership. The report will be used in negotiations with the state legislature to allocate higher education funds under the recently implemented Fair Share Amendment, more commonly known as the “millionaire’s tax.”
"Most importantly, [the experience] reminded me of why I came to HKS in the first place: to bring together data and policy in pursuit of a future where every student, regardless of their background, has an equal chance to thrive."
Rohit Kataria MPP 2026
I additionally built a policy simulator to estimate individual lifetime tax revenue and local consumer spending based on various assumptions. The simulator allows the DHE to experiment with various policy options, including free community college, early college, and three-year bachelor’s degrees. I also developed technical documentation of my analyses in R and Excel, ensuring that future analysts can build off this summer’s work.
My work for the Commonwealth primarily provided a deeper appreciation for the way data and policy intersect. The Kennedy School’s MPP core curriculum played a foundational role in this learning. My economics and statistics courses gave me the toolkit to incorporate net present value estimates and multivariate regression models, while my ethics course inspired me to include non-economic measures of higher education’s public benefits. Communicating my findings to other research team members and to the department leadership also challenged me to find ways to keep my message clear while tailoring it to my intended audience, a skill I know will serve me well.
This summer also gave me a broader perspective on the relationship between partisan politics and higher education. With previous experience in public higher education institutions in Ohio and Tennessee, two states with Republican-led legislatures, I was curious to see the similarities and differences with Massachusetts and its Democrat-led legislature. I was surprised that the similarities far outweighed the differences and even more surprised to learn that Massachusetts often looks to other states, including Tennessee and Texas, for inspiration for innovative higher education models.
I am incredibly grateful to the Gergen Summer Fellowship for making this opportunity possible. The experience sharpened my technical toolkit, allowed me to develop new communication skills, and deepened my understanding of higher education policy. Most importantly, it reminded me of why I came to HKS in the first place: to bring together data and policy in pursuit of a future where every student, regardless of their background, has an equal chance to thrive.
David Gergen Summer Fellowship Program
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