Master of Public Policy

at Kaplan Group - Arizona State University - Downtown Phoenix Campus USA

This highly-ranked concentration within our MPA program (#16 in Public Finance and Budgeting, U.S. News and World Report) will help you turn your desire for public service into a rewarding career in public finance and budgeting. The program can be completed full-time, part-time, or entirely online.

The MPA is a professional degree program designed to prepare students for public service at all levels of government as well as in the nonprofit and private sectors.

The program consists of a core curriculum emphasizing managerial and analytic skills needed in a large range of careers that serve the public good. Through a focused set of electives, the concentration in public finance provides knowledge and skills for students seeking careers or career advancement in areas in which financial management plays an integral role in governance. The concentration deepens knowledge in urban economics, managing money in the public sector, public budgeting, and capital budgeting and financing.

The MS in criminology and criminal justice is a research degree program designed to provide students with a high level of theoretical and empirical knowledge about crime and criminal justice.

The program provides students with the advanced research skills, training in program planning and management, and policy and statistical analysis needed for careers as criminal justice researchers, leadership roles in criminal justice and related agencies and organizations, and for continued study in doctoral programs in criminology and criminal justice.

The professional program leading to the MSW degree prepares social workers for advanced professional social work practice. The program is designed to prepare social workers to be capable of responding effectively to the needs of special populations, particularly in the American Southwest.

The first year of the standard program focuses on curriculum and skills that build a foundational knowledge in social work. The second year of the program allows students to focus their coursework in a specific area to build specialized practice knowledge.

Learn to understand complex public problems and develop and implement innovative policy solutions. Through coursework and real-world projects, you gain the analytic skills required to address society's most challenging problems.

The MPP program allows students to approach the study of public policy with a focus on public policy in the urban setting.

The program trains people to lead by making positive policy decisions, addressing the difficult questions associated with public policy, and managing the process of policy creation, approval, implementation and evaluation. Students also gain an understanding of policies addressing issues such as poverty, education, the environment and public safety. At the conclusion of the master's degree program, students are able to identify, analyze and interpret the challenges and dilemmas of public policies, especially those of urban areas. Students also are able to approach policy analysis with a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods and are prepared to develop innovative processes and tools to deal with changing realities of public policy and address issues on a global, regional and local scale.

The Master of Public Policy program with a concentration in urban policy provides knowledge and skills for students seeking or advancing careers in areas in which urban dynamics and local governance play an integral role in the policy process. This concentration's program emphasizes theories and research concerning urban policy analysis and economics as well as urban management, urban city government, public budgeting and finance in an urban context.

The BS program in community health develops leaders who are dedicated to addressing health challenges at their source while also creating partnerships to leverage resources. This program is designed for students who want to create healthy, sustainable communities.

Community health professionals work in partnership to address health needs of diverse populations. Students learn to understand the components of a healthy, sustainable community; advocate for diverse individuals, families and communities; and provide health education, health promotion and service coordination.

Graduates of this program provide health education, health promotion, care coordination, disease management, health care navigation and advocacy services for individuals, families and communities.

This degree program has the same prerequisites as the nursing major; therefore, students may transition seamlessly to this program and obtain a bachelor's degree in a health-related field.

The BA program in general studies offers students a flexible, innovative path to degree completion. Graduates of the program are informed and effective members of society who are well prepared for a changing global marketplace with its diverse cultures.

The theme of this degree is society and the individual. Students explore the tensions between individualism and collectivism, the public and private selves, domestic and global, and the interplay of culture and identity constructions.

The BS program in community sports management focuses on preparing individuals with an interest in managing sport programs and activities for children, youth, adults and seniors in nonprofit, municipal and for-profit organizations.

The program emphasizes the many roles community sports plays within the community including as a mechanism to improve overall quality of life, youth development, sport tourism and community development. Both program delivery and managerial functions are targeted. Specific areas of opportunity include work with youth sports, adaptive sports, sports tourism, sport events and adult recreational sports.

Through the BS degree program in nonprofit leadership and management, students are empowered to become successful professionals who work to advance the quality of life in communities.

The nonprofit sector in the United States is unique in form and function. This sector includes institutions and individuals situated between government, public, business and commerce sectors. With more than 1.6 million organizations in the U.S., the sector employs more people than the finance, insurance and real estate industries combined. Philanthropy (voluntary action for the public good) is a hallmark of the nonprofit sector as individuals give their time, money and know-how to causes about which they care.

The MS in community resources and development with a concentration in parks and recreation management is a research-oriented master's degree program. Students learn to analyze and understand critical topics and issues pertinent to the fields of tourism, parks and recreation management, nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations, and sustainable communities.

Learn to understand complex public problems and develop and implement innovative policy solutions. Through coursework and real-world projects, you gain the analytic skills required to address society's most challenging problems.

The MPP program equips students with the analytical tools they need to understand and address public policy issues. Students also develop skills in managing the process of policy development, approval, implementation, and evaluation as well as gain policy-specific knowledge on issues such as poverty, education, the environment and public safety.

Through a focused set of electives, the policy informatics concentration provides knowledge and skills to students seeking careers in which they can use informatics tools, models and simulations to help individuals and groups deliberate and evaluate policy decisions as well as explore new governance infrastructures. Emphasis is placed on theories and research concerning decision-making, complexity theory and visualization of quantitative and qualitative information, collective intelligence, behavioral economics and persuasive technologies.