UMBC Department of Public Policy

Study Concentrations

The interdisciplinary Public Policy Program requires completion of core courses in policy analysis and research methods; disciplinary foundation courses from economics, public policy and sociology; and courses in a particular policy or disciplinary concentration.

Students may select from five concentrations: evaluation and analytical methods, health policy, social policy, public management, and urban policy; and four disciplinary concentrations: economics, policy history (Ph.D. only), political science and sociology.

Specific course requirements for each area of concentration are listed in the Graduate Student Handbook.

Policy Concentrations

Evaluation and Analytical Methods

This track provides students with the opportunity to develop expertise in the application of a variety of analytical methods, including statistics, qualitative methods, operations research, and information systems to public policy and management issues.

Health Policy

The United States currently devotes one-seventh of its economy to health care. While many in the U.S. have access to what is likely the most technologically advanced care available, over 16 percent of the U.S. citizens are currently without health insurance that facilitates comparable access. The structure of the current U.S. health care system thus raises significant ethical issues while its evolving structure continues to raise legal issues. Understanding its development, present operation, and potential future rests on an appreciation of several disciplines, including sociology, political science, economics, and history.

Social Policy

Social Policy encompasses 4 tracks: aging, education, human services and legal policy.

Aging Policy. This track focuses on the policy implications of individual and societal aging. The increase in individual life expectancy (from about 50 at the turn of the century to about 76 now); the aging of society (as many as 20 percent of Americans will be aged 65 or over in the 21st century); the change from communicable to chronic degenerative disease as major causes of mortality; and changes in the social roles the elderly play as societies modernize have combined to make aging policy a major part of the public debate.

Educational Policy. For most state and local governments, education is one of the most important policy areas and a very large budget item. Federal educational policies are often on the frontiers of policy development and fiercely debated. The educational policy track permits students to focus on various types of educational policies made at every level of government. Courses are taken at UMBC and at the School of Education at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP). Students in the educational policy track may find positions with school systems and other academic institutions, educational associations, and governmental and research organizations.

Human Services Policy. This track focuses on welfare and poverty policy and can be taken by students who are interested in careers in public sector and nonprofit organizations, particularly income support, social services, or client-centered agencies. Students will be preparing for positions focused on the analysis and management of human services. Possible foci include program development and planning, program management, outcome assessment, and human services evaluation. Students in the Human Services Policy track may find positions such as director of family services, juvenile services administrator, director of hospital social services, aging program administrator, and director of planning for emergency relief.

Legal Policy. Whether decided by courts, administrative, or regulatory agencies, law is an enormously important means of making and influencing public policy. Increasingly, social science evidence is used in making legal decisions. The legal policy track permits students to focus on the many relationships of law and policy. Courses are offered at UMBC and at the University of Maryland School of Law and University of Baltimore School of Law where Public Policy also administers joint degree programs. Students in the legal policy track may find positions in government agencies, law enforcement, professional associations, and research organizations.

Public Management

This track is designed for students who wish to examine critical issues associated with managing public organizations or to prepare themselves for careers in public management at the local, state and federal levels.

Urban Policy

Many of the nation’s most serious problems - poverty, unemployment, crime, inadequate education, fiscal stress - are centered in our urban areas. This track provides an understanding of the nature and causes of urban problems and examines the various policy options for addressing them. It is concerned with urban issues on a variety of geographic levels: cities, suburbs, metropolitan areas, and neighborhoods and on the relationships among these areas (e.g. city-suburban relations).

Disciplinary Concentrations

Economics*

The economics track provides students with basic graduate level training in the theory and applications of microeconomics and econometrics. Students may use the elective courses to strengthen their analytic abilities (e.g., through taking courses in Benefit-Cost Evaluation, Managerial Economics, or Forecasting), and/or to deepen their understanding of policy relevant areas such as human resources, health, the environment, public finance, and international economics.

Policy History (Ph.D. only)

Policy History involves interdisciplinary analysis of policy development and implementation. Grounded in historical research, the history of public policy includes a variety of social science analytical methodologies. Topics areas cover any aspect of the history of public policy, such as legislation, public health, social welfare, and science and technology. Policy history provides an avenue for studying the hows and whys in public policy shifts over time, and explores paths to comparative analysis for informing current debates.

Political Science

The Political Science track is available to Public Policy students who are especially interested in the political context of public policies - in particular, the political forces that shape them and the governing institutions that design and implement them. It should be understood that this track in no way is equivalent to a graduate program in the discipline of Political Science, and that it includes only courses that appropriately support the Public Policy graduate curricula.

Sociology

The Sociology track focuses on the social context for policy formation and implementation by addressing major demographic variations in the population, the social institutional context in which the policy process occurs, and the inequalities of power and resources which influence policy outcomes. Courses address both macro-level and mid-level social processes which contribute to the creation of policy issues and to the shape of their resolution.

*UMBC offers an M.A. in History, an M.A. in Applied Sociology, and an M.A. in Economic Policy Analysis.