Degree Requirements for the PhD
The PhD in Urban Education Policy, adapted for the dual degree, requires a minimum of 48 units of course work, comprising the following elements: Core Block (16 units), Concentration Block (15 units), Research Block (12 units), and Dissertation Proposal and Dissertation Block (5 units).
Degree Requirements for the MPP
The Master of Public Policy, adapted for the dual degree, requires a total of 36 units. The public policy units include 24 units of core courses, the 4-unit Policy Analysis Practicum, and 8 units of analytic electives.
Prerequisites
All entering students must have a bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution and are required to demonstrate proficiency in foundational statistical methods. The statistics prerequisite can be satisfied in one of two ways:
Statistics or Econometrics Course Taken Prior to Enrollment in the MPP
Completion of a college-level statistics or econometrics course with a grade of “B” or better within three years of matriculation. At a minimum, prior course work must have included essential topics in descriptive and inferential statistics such as measures of central tendency and dispersion, confidence intervals, and hypothesis testing. If relevant statistical course work was completed more than three years prior, a waiver may be granted based on the level of statistical training completed and the degree to which currency with this material was maintained through subsequent professional use.
PPD 504 Essential Statistics for Public Management
If a student has not completed a college-level statistics course with a grade of “B” or better within three years of matriculation, they will need to complete a summer course prior to starting the MPP program. USC offers PPD 504 Essential Statistics for Public Management each summer; a grade of “C” or better in PPD 504 is sufficient to satisfy the statistics prerequisite. Students may instead choose to satisfy the requirement by completing a qualifying statistics course at another institution prior to enrolling at USC. If the course is completed outside of USC, it must be taken for a grade and the student must earn a grade of “B” or better. Regardless of which course is used to meet the prerequisite requirement, the units associated with the course will not be used toward the 84 required degree units.
Pre-semester MPP Labs
The Professional Fundamentals and Statistics/STATA Labs provide an introduction to the program, acclimate students to skills that will be further developed in their first-semester courses and help to create a genuine camaraderie within the first-year student cohort. Entering MPP students are required to participate in the Statistics/STATA Lab as well as the Professional Fundamentals Lab. The labs meet the week prior to the start of the fall semester. The Professional Fundamentals Lab will lead directly into PPD 554 Foundations of Policy Analysis , while the Statistics/STATA Lab will provide initial exposure to the statistical software that will be utilized extensively in PPD 558 Multivariate Statistical Analysis .
Additional Requirements
Program Adaptation
Students in the dual degree are not required to take the 12-unit specialization elective requirement from the MPP program. Instead they are required to take PPDE 668 and 8 units of analytic course work/electives, and because they will specialize in educational policy, they will obtain the relevant expertise through the Rossier course work.
Students also do not take the 12-unit Cognate Block and 3 units of the 15-unit Research Block from the PhD program because the scope of these block requirements are interdisciplinary in nature or research-oriented, and as such are naturally suited to combine with the MPP.
Students work with their adviser to make the best selection of elective course work to align with their educational and career goals.
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