Master of Public Administration, MPA

The Master of Public Administration (MPA) program at UCCS prepares students to take leadership roles in the public and nonprofit sectors. The UCCS MPA program is the only program in the Pikes Peak Region accredited by the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA).

The MPA program offers courses in-person, online, or a combination of both. Within the program, there are around 200 active students. Class sizes are capped at 20, except for capstone courses, where you may have up to 36 students.

Students in the MPA program should expect to complete the degree in no less than one and a half and no more than six years; the average is about three years. 

In addition to a solid core curriculum focused on essential problem-solving and decision-making skills and diverse elective choices, students with less professional experience have opportunities to participate in internships with public and nonprofit agencies. 

The MPA program equips students with the skills needed to: 

• Pursue a successful public service career
• Effectively lead and manage governmental and nonprofit organizations
• Innovate and collaborate to tackle societal challenges by creating, implementing, analyzing, and improving policies

Prerequisites

Applicants to the MPA program should have a bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university, with grades sufficiently high to indicate the ability to pursue graduate work, typically a cumulative undergraduate grade point average of 3.0 or better. MPA applicants may have an undergraduate degree in any field.

Required Application Materials

To apply to the MPA program, please use the Online Graduate School Application.

Additional required materials include:

• A written statement for each of the following three prompts. Each response should be approximately 500 words. When writing your three application statements, please ensure you are personalizing each response and not using ChatGPT or other AI software to write your submission. Use of AI software is subject to automatic denial of one's application.
  • What are your career aspirations, and how can your academic experience contribute to your career goals?
  • What is relevant in your professional or academic background that contributes to your anticipated success in your graduate experience?
  • Provide an example of how your characteristics helped you overcome a specific challenge.
• $60 non-refundable application fee
• Official transcripts from all previously attended institutions (both undergraduate and graduate level work) are required for admission review. Please view the Graduate School Admission's page for information on how to send official transcripts.
• Current resume

The MPA program does not require a GRE test score for admissions.

Please note that current UCCS undergraduate students applying for the program or current UCCS graduate students in other certificate or degree programs may have different requirements. 

Deadlines

Admission to the MPA program is made on a rolling basis, and applicants are notified as soon as an admission decision is made. Application deadlines are as follows:

If you miss the deadline, please contact us.

Additional resources for Admissions:

• Tuition Rate
• Cost of Tuition Estimator
• Financial Aid
• Scholarships

Core Coursework

All MPA students are required to take the following core courses (18 credit hours) to provide them with a solid foundation in the key concerns relevant to the public and nonprofit sectors. 

• PADM 5001 - Introduction to Public Administration and Public Service   
• PADM 5002 - Organizational Management and Behavior    
• PADM 5003 - Research and Analytic Methods
• PADM 5004 - Budgeting and Finance for Public and Nonprofit Organizations    
• PADM 5005 - The Policy Process and Democracy
• PADM 5006 - Ethics and Leadership   

Please visit the UCCS Academic Catalog for the most up-to-date list of program courses, course descriptions, and detailed program requirements.

Internship Requirements

The MPA program requires professional experience for degree completion. Students who do not have at least one year of professional experience in public administration or nonprofit management, or the equivalent, are classified as pre-service students and are required to participate in an internship as part of their academic path. This internship requirement means that pre-service students must complete 39 credit hours to earn the MPA, whereas other students are required to complete 36.

To complete the internship, pre-service students must first complete a minimum of 9 credit hours of coursework. They must then identify a public or nonprofit organization where they can complete a 240-hour internship while concurrently enrolling in PADM 6910, a pass/fail course.

PADM 6910 is not available for in-service students. However, in-service students who are interested in professional development opportunities can take an Independent Study (PADM 9500) to do so.

Elective courses include a mixture of specialized courses, workshops, and other formats. Students may choose to focus these elective hours around a particular area based on their interests and career goals. If desired, students can use their electives to earn one of the following graduate certificates:

• Criminal Justice
• Grant Writing, Management, and Program Evaluation
• Nonprofit Management
• National Security Intelligence
• Homeland Security and Emergency Management

MPA students are required to complete either the Capstone Seminar (3 credit hours) or Master's Thesis (6 credit hours) as their culminating experience.

Capstone Seminar students work with a client in a public or nonprofit agency to identify a problem and then, using the knowledge and skills they have gained in the program, carry out a project and write a paper to address the identified problem. 

Master's Thesis students conduct a comprehensive review of the theoretical and research literature in the subject area of their thesis and collect original data or analyze existing data in new ways. Because the thesis is 6 credit hours, thesis students will only be required to take 12 hours of electives.

The UCCS MPA degree is accredited by the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration’s (NASPAA) commission on Peer Review and Accreditation. Graduates of the MPA program are assumed to have the following competencies, as enumerated by NASPAA.

The ability to:

• Lead and manage in public interest
• Participate in, contribute to, the policy process
• To analyze, synthesize, think critically, solve problems and make evidence informed decisions in a complex and dynamic environment
• To articulate, apply, and advance a public service perspective
• To communicate and interact productively and in culturally responsive ways with a diverse and changing workforce and society at large

Applicants to Enrolled Students

The following information documents the number of completed MPA applications, the number of students admitted, and the number of students enrolled during the academic years listed.

Time to Graduate

The College of Public Service attracts students at various points in their professional development, including students actively seeking their first public service appointment to mid-career public servants seeking career advancements. Program flexibility allows the MPA program to meet the scheduling challenges of students.

UCCS has established that a graduate student is full-time if s/he takes at least five credit hours per semester (three credit hours in summer).

If a full-time student takes two courses, or six credit hours, per semester and does not attend summer sessions, a typical occurrence, it will take that student three years to complete the MPA program (internships notwithstanding). Those part-time students who complete only one course per semester, or those unable to attend every semester, will require longer to complete degree requirements.

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