Degrees after an MPP/MPA?

[Revolutionary]

Dear Gradcafe community,

I am leaning towards a second degree after doing my MPP/MPA. You see, I have received the Fulbright scholarship award and will be coming from my country Pakistan to the US on a free ride for my MPA/MPP, so my "investment" in the degree is little, that is, I will not be graduating with any debt. The caveat is that, I will be unable to get work in the US after the program due to a clause in the scholarship.

Taking into consideration some other factors, it is likely that I may go for a master's in economics or economic policy after my MPA/MPP is over. Why am I not going into economics straight away?

1. My award is only for MPA/MPP. I would like to make use of it, particularly, because policy programs do impart a lot of knowledge and learning, and the ones I'm looking into offer substantial international internship experience. If the financial cost is near zero, why not?

2. With my current academic and professional credentials, no decent school would take me into their economics program.

Why am I going into economics after an MPP/MPA?

After browsing the forum here and doing my own research, it seems to that policy careers, on the global as well as local scale, are hard to get into without substantial work experience. I will have 2 years of work exp, only one of which in the public sector, by the time I'll be going for my MPA in Fall 2018. Despite this lack of work exp, I feel an economics degree, would make me much more "hireable" in a much more diverse range of careers due to the universal use of economics and put me in a better position because of the specialist knowledge that it implants. The combined MPA+economics branding would show my versatility plus specialized knowledge.

 

Anyway, the big question is, is doing an MPA/MPP and then a masters in economics or economic policy (or for that matter, a masters in any specialized field, for example environmental policy, health-care economics, etc.) a good idea?

Edited November 21, 2017 by Revolutionary

[ExponentialDecay]

I don't know about Pakistan, but in the US, an MPA grad will be hired into many of the jobs an Econ MA grad would be and vice versa (if we're talking policy jobs - if we're talking about quant-heavy stuff, that's different). I'm also not sure how having an econ MA is going to attack your problem of lack of work experience. An econ MA is not work experience. 

I think you should go to the US, pay attention to the job market while you're studying at your MPA program, and decide once you have a better idea of the lay of the land.