‘MBAs for the Public Good’? 

We all have our own reasons for going to grad school. Mine was perhaps one of the worst on the list — I went for a boy. With my then-boyfriend, now husband, pursuing an interminably long PhD in computer science, I joined him in New York City to study at NYU, pursuing both a master’s in media studies and taking elective courses at NYU Wagner’s Master of Public Administration (MPA) program.

I enjoyed the classes I took and the people I met at Wagner, but since graduating and watching my peers navigate the nonprofit job market, I’ve felt profoundly ambivalent about the value of graduate degrees to prepare people for careers in the sector. Some of my peers landed great job roles, while others are drowning in debt and struggling to jump-start their careers.

There are countless degrees nonprofit professionals can and do pursue: MBAs, law degrees, social work and more. But for those who are confident that they want to break into or progress in the nonprofit sector, a common route is to undertake an MPA.

MPAs are perhaps best understood as “MBAs for the public good,” as David Schachter, associate dean of student affairs at NYU Wagner, put it to me. They are offered in New York City at NYU, Columbia, Pace University and Baruch College. (Alongside their MPA, Columbia has offered a Nonprofit Management M.S. since 2016.) MPAs have been around for 100 years (the oldest was founded by Syracuse University in 1924), and they initially trained students for government roles. As the nonprofit sector professionalized and expanded throughout the 1980s, programs increasingly began catering to aspiring nonprofit workers, and many now feature a specialized nonprofit track.

Similar to other graduate programs, their curricula have been cobbled together to try to prepare people for a range of possible roles. None of these degrees qualify students for a specific role, as a law degree does. Course offerings vary, but often include classes on policy analysis, management and leadership, and microeconomics. In particular, the quantitative elements of the curriculum can include courses on data visualization, budget management and statistical analysis — skills which Basil Smikle, the program director of Columbia’s nonprofit management master’s degree, observes a “growing demand for.”

But many nonprofit roles don’t require a quantitative skillset, and some of the other qualities professionals need to thrive are far harder to translate to the classroom. Schachter argues that, “in particular, management and leadership is a hard class to grasp without practical experience to compare it to.” There’s also a real intangibility to what makes someone stand out and progress in a nonprofit setting: An “entrepreneurial and creative spirit” is how Smikle put it to me. Those qualities may well be impossible to teach.

A great deal of preprofessional education comes up against this challenge: Schools are teaching work-specific skills, but without the real work behind it to make the stakes or scenarios tangible. And MPAs and nonprofit management degrees face a similar challenge to other graduate degrees like MFAs and journalism programs: Their offering is based on convincing people who don't strictly need a degree to get a job that it will nevertheless help them with their career. And to their credit, many programs geared toward nonprofit professionals build real-world experience into their curricula through capstone projects, internships or fellowships with New York City nonprofits.

Myriam (who preferred not to use their full name), a recent graduate I spoke to from a private MPA in New York, felt that the skills you learn in graduate school can only go so far. After previously working for a decade in frontline nonprofit roles, they spent much of their time taking communication-focused courses. But now that they’re on the job hunt, they’ve realized that coursework in communications is simply not equivalent to years worked in the field. For PR roles in particular, working relationships with journalists are a stronger credential than having completed coursework drawing up a strategic communications plan.

The value of these nonprofit degrees isn’t just confined to the skills that the courses teach, of course. A long-term alumni study (conducted every five years) with NYU Wagner MPA graduates asked them how the degree prepared them for their careers, and “networking” was one of the most common answers. (One could say networking is a central value of undergraduate degrees as well.)

This was true for Erin Carden, who wanted to work in digital communications at a nonprofit but couldn’t secure a paid role in New York straight out of undergrad. Carden got by working for years as a babysitter, cafe server and day care worker while working unpaid at various nonprofits to build up her resume. Seemingly unable to break into the sector in a full-time paid capacity, Carden went to grad school with one goal only: to get a job.

She opted for grad school at NYU, where a fellowship allowed her to get some experience at the voting registration nonprofit Vote Riders. Upon graduating from NYU in 2022, she was offered a full-time job there. She’s still working at the organization.

According to Carden, it wasn’t necessarily the skills acquired in her Wagner courses but “a connection that got me the job — the fact I was an NYU student taking a Wagner class. … A lot of things I learned (during her classes) I’m not actually doing.” Carden also echoed a sentiment that several MPA graduates shared with me: They feel they will use the skills they learned at school later in their careers when they are more senior, rather than straight out of the gate.

Schachter explains that breaking into the nonprofit job market is very different from starting out in industries like law, finance and consulting. In these fields, there is a steady pipeline of graduate student talent flowing out of schools and into work. By contrast, most nonprofits don’t have regular recruitment cycles but instead hire specific roles when vacancies arise.

Crucially, for these degrees to enhance graduates’ employability, employers themselves need to believe in their value. Schachter feels that “the MPA is better understood in the nonprofit sector than it was 50 years ago — I think folks are seeing the skillset that MPAs are coming out with and that they’re able to hit the ground running.”

This may well be the case, but, inevitably, perceptions of MPAs vary. Myriam recalls speaking to a COO at a nonprofit about her career path, who asked about their MPA: “Is that degree worth anything?” “I hope so,” Myriam replied. “I’m in thousands of dollars of debt!”

The value proposition also depends on what kind of nonprofit organization graduates are trying to break into. Some MPA programs professionalize activism, with courses specifically training students in organizing and protest tactics. But according to longtime political organizer Daniel Coates, an NYU MPA graduate and former adjunct professor for an MPA course on advocacy, “nonprofits in the social justice sector don’t put as much emphasis on graduate degrees — so much of it is about relationships and who you know.”

Some students are not looking to secure an entry or mid-level role but to advance careers already well underway. Take Benjamin Murphy, a graduate of Columbia’s nonprofit management program, who had worked in the nonprofit sector for twenty years in the field prior to enrolling.

“I had the experience, but I didn’t have the ‘stamp of approval’ that an advanced degree provides. I had hit a ceiling in what positions I could advance into without a graduate degree. Once in the program, I benefited greatly from having a formal grounding in areas like finance, management, marketing… The rigor of an academic setting really helped take my work to the next level.” Murphy now works at the director level at a nonprofit and credits his degree in part for his career progression.

The return on investment of a graduate degree should be a question on any applicant’s mind. Unlike with some other professional degrees, many graduates of MPA programs are not immediately on track to earn six-figure salaries — despite some private universities charging steep fees. The city’s most expensive MPA is Columbia University’s, which at time of writing charges $71,364 for tuition for the academic year of 2025-26 (the program is two-years long). By contrast, the 2025-26 yearly tuition for CUNY’s MPA at Baruch College is a mere $12,750 for New York residents, less than 20% of the cost of Columbia’s program. The average salaries after graduating from these programs range from $75,000 to $103,000.

There are scholarships and fellowships offered for many of these programs, including select numbers of full rides. Still, even with a competitive full-tuition scholarship, some students will need to take out loans in order to meet New York City’s sky-high cost of living — or work multiple jobs to keep afloat. This can leave students who do not have significant personal resources with little time for the slow, reflective academic study that graduate degrees demand (not to mention the energy to network with those around them).

Many who teach nonprofit management courses are not full-time, tenured professors, but practitioners in the field who teach part-time. Adjunct professors are paid far less than their tenured peers and are often on insecure fixed-term contracts. The combination of high tuition and low-paid professors contributes to the perception that public policy degrees are, as former MPA student and professor Daniel Coates puts it, “cash cows for the university.”

Does undertaking a graduate degree like an MPA improve nonprofit workers’ earning potential? There isn’t a straightforward answer. A 2024 report on financial insecurity amongst nonprofit sector workers uses a threshold called “ALICE” to categorize those who are not necessarily below the official U.S. poverty line but are “Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed” — in other words, making less than what they need to cover basic costs like housing, childcare and food. Strikingly, the report found that while 46% of nonprofit workers with less than a high school diploma were below the ALICE threshold in 2022, the rate was much lower for workers with a master’s, doctoral or professional degree, at 10%. But that report lumps all graduate degrees together, so we don’t know exactly how MPAs and nonprofit management programs impact the future financial earnings of nonprofit workers, as compared to a law degree or MBA.

Taking on debt to pay for an MPA — or, for that matter, for any graduate degree — can be a life-altering decision. Since graduating from their program over six months ago, Myriam has emptied their savings, withdrawn money from their 401(k) and is considering going back to waiting tables to make cash while they continue to job hunt. There is a cruel irony to situations like these: Some students graduate from these programs for public good with so much personal debt that they then have to work in the private sector.

There are resources available for students to do their financial research before pursuing graduate education. But it is also worth asking why universities charge as much as they do for these programs — students might be naive about nonprofit salaries, but universities are decidedly not.

Regardless, some students retrospectively deem it worth coughing up the high tuition. Nonprofit director Murphy reports that his graduate education was valuable, citing the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program: “I certainly did the math. For those in nonprofit work, the PSLF program helps make things more manageable, so that was a key consideration.”

But PSLF should be pursued with caution as a financial strategy for students taking on loans — nonprofit workers can, frustratingly, disqualify themselves from it if their salary becomes too high. As is often the case in the U.S., the answer to whether a master’s degree is worth it often comes down to a simple question: Can you afford to take on the debt?

With Donald Trump returned to the presidency, many administrators and professors at these programs believe that applications will surge as young people look for ways to channel their idealism. Hopefully this next generation of wide-eyed nonprofit graduate students will keep one eye on their future careers — and another on their finances.