Did you know there are more federal employees in California than DC?

[Howie]

http://www.fedsdatacenter.com/federal-employee-counts/

 

I realize that not everyone who is getting an MPA or MPP wants to become a federal employee. However, I'm surprised that the top California policy schools (USC and UCLA) don't get more love on here, while lesser schools that are "close to DC" get more publicity. Thoughts?

[TakeruK]

I'm not in the field here but here's my thoughts based on numbers (which I think I do know about!). California has a population of like 38 million while DC and Virginia (the next 2 on your list) have much smaller populations (0.6 million, 8 million). So it might be important to look at the number of federal employees per capita rather than just the total absolute number. Also, I think the area of California is much much larger than Virginia and DC, right?

[TimB]

Also, how many federal agencies are headquartered in California

 

Still, it's a valid point. DC schools are not a prerequisite to federal work. I assume people here favor DC so much in part because we have a lot of foreign policy and international development folks. For that line of work the northeastern corridor, with DC as the political capital of the nation, and NYC as the financial capital, is probably the best place to be location wise.

[Brunell047]

Not much discussion about USC & UCLA because of the prevalence of the ID & FP students.  May have some leg up with Latin America or Pacific Rim work over the rest.  

 

BUT...these are great schools if you want to focus on domestic policy

[chocolatecheesecake]

First, the numbers bear some closer examination. According to this website (which is not .gov), California has 172,873 employees to DC's 166,280, so it's really a marginal amount. More importantly, Virginia is third with 147,787, so the DC metro area has much more overall. Context... pretty important! 

 

Secondly, to address the question of why USC and UCLA aren't as bruited about, I think that it is a matter of focus on domestic versus international. Also, you're kind of missing Berkeley when it comes to the rigorous MPP programs on the West Coast. But that's three good schools mostly for domestic policy versus about ten thousand which focus on public administration as well as international development on the East Coast and elsewhere. Speaking as someone who is waiting to hear back from USC and Berkeley, I think people are quite interested in those schools.