Master in Public Policy

The MPP curriculum will broaden your perspective and sharpen skills to prepare you for a successful career in public service.

The first year of the MPP Program focuses on the cross-disciplinary fundamentals of policy design, analysis, and implementation. You will take core courses to develop professional competencies in: 

• Economics
• Ethics
• Financial management
• Negotiation
• Policy design and delivery
• Politics
• Quantitative analysis
• Applied history

Areas of Focus

As a complement to the MPP core curriculum, you will also choose a Policy Area of Concentration (PAC) in one of five areas: 

• Business and Government Policy
• Democracy, Politics, and Institutions
• International and Global Affairs 
• Political and Economic Development
• Social and Urban Policy 

Summer Internships

While it isn’t a formal requirement, most MPP students take on a policy-oriented internship during the summer after the first year. You’ll apply what you’ve learned in class to gain deeper insights; use new skills; and face challenges in different professional areas, policy fields, or parts of the world.

Most first-year MPP students take 38 credits, which consists of 18 core course credits in the fall and 16 core course credits credits in the spring. Many students also begin taking elective courses in the spring of their first year.

Required Core Courses (First Year)

• Resources, Incentives, and Choices I: Markets and Market Failures (API-101, 4 credits)
• Quantitative Analysis and Empirical Methods (API-201, 4 credits)
• Policy Design and Delivery I (API-501, 4 credits)
• Race and Racism in the Making of the United States as a Global Power (DPI-385M, 2 credits)
• Race and Racism in Public Policies, Practices, and Perspectives (DPI-386M, 2 credits)
• Fundamentals of Negotiation Analysis and Practice (MLD-220M, 2 credits)
• Resources, Incentives, and Choices II: Analysis of Public Policy (API-102, 4 credits)
• Empirical Methods II (API-202M, 2 credits & API-203M, 2 credits)
• Politics and Ethics in Unstable Times (DPI-200, 4 credits)
• Spring Exercise (API-500M, 0 credits)

Spring Exercise

The first-year MPP curriculum culminates in the Spring Exercise, a two-week simulation that applies the tools and concepts of the first-year core to a real-world, real-time policy issue. 

During the Exercise, you are assigned to a five-person team tasked with forging solutions to a deliberately tough challenge. You’ll conduct research, attend sessions and presentations that link the topic to your core courses, and work with your team to prepare a package of policy and management recommendations. 

Required Core Courses (Second Year)

• Policy Area of Concentration year-long seminar (or “PAC Seminar”), including completion of the Policy Analysis Exercise (PAE) (4 credits)
• PAC electives (8-20 credits dependent on PAC/Concentration)

Policy Analysis Exercise

The Policy Analysis Exercise (PAE)  is the capstone of the MPP experience.

The PAC Seminars familiarize you with key issues and policy debates in your particular area and guide you through the PAE writing process. Once you declare your PAE topic, you will be assigned a faculty advisor with the expertise to help you succeed.  

During the PAE, you develop solutions for a policy or management problem that your client—a public or nonprofit organization—is grappling with. You and your client work together to scope the problem, examine the context,  gather data, formulate and evaluate options, and make actionable recommendations. The final analysis—usually around 40 pages or 10,000 words—gives you the opportunity to integrate the technical skills and specialized knowledge you have gained from the MPP curriculum while also helping your client organization create public value.

Learn more about the Policy Analysis Exercise and read past examples. 

The MPP Program consists of four semesters of full-time coursework in residence at HKS. 

To graduate, you must: 

• Earn at least 72 credits, which must include the required core curriculum, your PAC requirements, capstone experiences, and electives
• Matriculate as a full-time, in-residence student and take between 12-24 credits per semester
• Finish with a GPA of B or better
• Earn a B- or higher in all required MPP core courses, and PAC requirements, as well as a passing grade for the Spring Exercise, PAE, and PAC Seminar

You might consider pursuing a second degree jointly or concurrently if you’re interested in how the world’s challenges can be addressed at the intersection of public policy and business, law, medicine, design, or other fields.

Pursuing a joint or concurrent degree reduces coursework and residency requirements and makes it possible to earn two degrees in a shorter amount of time.

Joint Degrees

As an MPP student, you can pursue a joint degree—either an MBA at Harvard Business School or a JD at Harvard Law School—that involves carefully crafted and integrated coursework.

Concurrent Degrees

You can pursue a concurrent degree in business, law, medicine, design, or another field—as long as it is:

• A professional degree (an MBA, MD, or JD; not a PhD or an academic master’s)
• At least a two-year program
• Completed at a partner school

The concurrent degree program allows you to pursue degrees at HKS and at a partner school; however, the coursework is not as closely integrated as the joint degree program. As a concurrent degree student, you are responsible for weaving together the two halves of your learning experience.

Faculty members at HKS aren’t just teachers. They are global experts who shape public policy, advise governments, and help run major institutions in the United States and abroad. Learn more about our core MPP faculty members.