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Master’s Program

Education Policy and Analysis

Introduce Yourself
Students sit at a table with information packets. A young woman explains material

Connect with Program Staff

Program-specific questions: Assistant Director for Education Policy and Analysis Sarah Haas.

Connect with Admissions

Admissions-related questions: gseadmissions@harvard.edu.

Gain the skills to design, evaluate, and scale the effective policies and practices critical to improving outcomes for learners — at the global, national, state, and local levels.

The Education Policy and Analysis (EPA) Program will prepare you to lead and engage in education policy development, analysis, and change in organizations and settings throughout the United States and internationally. You also will learn how to scale effective education practices and how to leverage policy to expand their reach. The program will provide you with theoretical frameworks and analytic methods that will enable you to design, implement, and evaluate policies at the global, national, state, institutional, program, and project levels. Our program prepares you to work in local, state, national, and international sectors, as well as research and consulting organizations, think tanks, institutions of higher education, and policy advocacy organizations.  

"EPA prepares students to connect rigorous evidence with real-world policy choices, always keeping equity and learner outcomes at the center. The program helps future policy leaders understand context, evaluate tradeoffs, communicate with purpose, and build policies and practices that can improve education systems locally, nationally, and globally."

Emiliana Vegas
Faculty Chair

After completing the Education Policy and Analysis Program, students will be able to:

  • Integrate values and goals - Integrate the values and goals of your organization or community throughout the policy process, with special attention to equity as a central value in education.
  • Understand the issue and context - Define the educational problem or opportunity with an understanding of the relevant historical, social, economic, and political context, including the differing interests and incentives of stakeholders.
  • Evaluate evidence and tradeoffs - Define policy options and the criteria for evaluating them. Evaluate the quality of the available evidence and use it to compare alternatives, considering fiscal, political, social, individual, and collective consequences and tradeoffs.
  • Communicate and collaborate - Communicate, collaborate, advocate, and negotiate with allies, opponents, and other stakeholders. Convey evidence and reasoning clearly and appropriately for the audience.
  • Engage in the policy process - Make recommendations and implement policy under conditions of uncertainty, revising decisions as new evidence and understandings come to light. Build and share new evidence on policy implementation and impact. 

The EPA Program is designed to help you gain the knowledge and practice the skills essential to developing, implementing, and analyzing education policy in a wide variety of professional contexts. A minimum of 42 credits is required to graduate with an Ed.M. degree from HGSE. 

The main elements of this academic year curriculum are: 

  • The Foundations courses — How People Learn, Evidence, Advancing Equity and Opportunity, and Leading Change — in which students gain core skills central to the profession of education.
    • This program commences with How People Learn, an immersive online course that runs June–July and requires a time commitment of 12–15 hours per week.
    • In August, you’ll continue your Foundations experience by taking Evidence, Advancing Equity and Opportunity, and Leading Change. All students will take all courses and must be on campus on or before August 2, 2027.  

To fulfill the program requirement, students must take a minimum of 12 credits specific to EPA, including the following:

  • Program core courses (4 credits): topics include a flagship introduction to education policy and analysis, economics of education, and advanced courses for students with prior training in statistics and economics.
  • Research methods courses (4 credits): topics may include statistics for educational research, qualitative research methods, and program evaluation.  
  • Policy-related courses (4 credits): topics may include international comparative education policy, state and federal education policy, legal issues in education, higher education student success, and additional research methods.
  • Policy Analysis Exercise (PAE): a written submission that demonstrates application of program competencies to a real-world or simulated organization or client. The PAE may be a final project developed in a course, including the courses above, or in a field experience or internship. The purpose of the PAE is to allow you to practice, demonstrate, and reflect on the five core competencies of the EPA Program.  
  • The remaining credits are taken via elective coursework, which includes the opportunity to specialize in a Concentration. 

Explore our course catalog.
Note, all information and courses are subject to change.

Students will work closely with faculty associated with their area of study, but students can also work with and take courses with faculty throughout HGSE and Harvard. View our faculty directory for a full list of HGSE faculty.

The EPA Program prepares you for a variety of career pathways, including:  

  • Policy analyst, associate, or consultant
  • Local, state, or federal government professional
  • International education policy advisor
  • Monitoring and evaluation specialist
  • Data analyst
  • Research associate or director of research
  • Institutional research analyst
  • Higher education administrator  
  • Program/project coordinator or manager
  • Legal, regulatory, and compliance advocacy in education 

As an EPA student, you will be joining a community bound by a shared passion for improving education outcomes, opportunities, and systems through policy. The EPA cohort is comprised of learners from diverse professional backgrounds and levels of experience; from P–16 educators and leaders to policymakers and legal and business executives; from the U.S. and diverse countries abroad; and from early childhood through postsecondary and adult education. Our community engages in shared learning inside and outside the classroom, including informal policy debates with faculty, panels with senior policy analysts who share advice on career pathways, and cohort-wide opportunities to learn about and from your peers. 

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Program Highlights

Explore examples of the Education Policy and Analysis experience and the impact its community is making on the field:

Contact Information

  • Connect with Program Staff

    Program-specific questions: Assistant Director for Education Policy and Analysis Sarah Haas.

    Connect with Admissions

    Admissions-related questions: gseadmissions@harvard.edu.

Admissions Information