Public Administration Careers and Career Services

  • Go to SF State Career Services and Leadership Development for assistance with your career services
  • Make sure to catch the career panels and speakers throughout the semester (announcements in the weekly Must-Read MPA emails)
  • One-hundred percent of students who graduated in academic year 2017-2018 were employed when they began the MPA Program.
    • Many of them experienced career changes while pursuing their degrees, with 44% getting new jobs, 32% being promoted, 40% changing agencies, and 12% changing sectors.
    • Forty-seven percent (20) of those graduates responded to a survey we conducted asking about their employment status six-months after graduation. Of those, all were employed at the time the survey was conducted and 85% were employed within six months of graduation. Many of these graduates work in nonprofit organizations or local government agencies (29% each). Eighteen percent work for state government agencies, while 12% work for the federal government. The remainder work in the for-profit sector, evenly divide between research/consulting firms and non-research positions. All but one reported working at the same organization within six months of graduating as at the time of the survey.

MPA Student Employment (Graduates 2018-2019)

Six months after our Academic Year 2018-2019 graduates completed their degree, 36 percent were employed by city, county or other local governments, 16 percent were employed by nonprofit organizations, 12 percent employed in the private sector and 8 percent employed in research/consulting and by states or regional government.

Employment figures pie chart