Learn the management, budgeting, financial, and analytical skills necessary to advance in public management, policy analysis, and governance-related positions.
Our mission is to impart public service values and knowledge so that graduates are prepared to enrich our communities by leading, managing, and solving public service-related problems with empathy, integrity, and excellence.
URI’s Master of Public Administration is a fully-online accelerated degree program that includes a curriculum of core courses and stackable certificates. All accelerated online classes are offered in convenient 7-week modules designed to allow students the flexibility needed to successfully complete coursework while meeting professional and/or personal obligations. Students typically complete the program in under two years, with some securing their MPA degree in as little as one year.
URI Master of Public Administration program first to be accredited in Rhode Island by prestigious NASPAA
NASPAA accreditation recognizes that a master’s degree program in public and nonprofit policy, affairs, or administration has undertaken a rigorous process of peer review conducted by the Commission on Peer Review and Accreditation (COPRA).
Careers
Students who complete the URI Master of Public Administration degree will advance to positions requiring financial and budgetary expertise, leadership skills, knowledge of administrative law and procedure, the management of agency personnel, policy and grant writing, and analytics skills.
Our students and graduates work in government relations for:
- Non-profit Agencies
- Non-profit Management and Grant Writing
- Municipal Government
- Planning
- Housing Policy
- Environmental Policy
- Education Policy
- Health Policy
- Energy Policy
- Election Administration
Internship and Employment Opportunities
Students may find internship and job opportunities via GradCAS. Placements have included:
- Federal, State, and Local Government
- Military Services
- Rhode Island Secretary of State
- State of Rhode Island Internship Program
- City of Cranston Planning Department
- Community College of Rhode Island Division of Workforce Partnerships
- Town of Barrington Planning Department
- Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office
- Town of Westerly Planning Department
The two most welcome surprises of the program thus far have been the immediate applicability of the coursework in my professional life as well as the relationships I’ve been able to develop with classmates… To be able to take what I learned in a public budgeting course in one week and translate it into pulling together a budget as an elected official for a municipality in the next week is incredibly rewarding. To be pushed to think critically about public policy one day and then consider how to implement and advocate for change in my professional world is extremely valuable.Hillary Lima, URI MPA Alumna