Public Policy at Northwestern University

If you plan to study public policy, take a look at what Northwestern University has to offer and decide if the program is a good match for you. Get started with the following essential facts.

Northwestern is located in Evanston, Illinois and has a total student population of 22,603. In the 2020-2021 academic year, 45 students received a bachelor's degree in public policy from Northwestern.

Want to know more about the career opportunities in this field? Check out the Careers in Public Policy section at the bottom of this page.

Northwestern Public Policy Degrees Available

• Bachelor’s Degree in Public Policy

Northwestern Public Policy Rankings

Each year, College Factual ranks public policy programs across the country. The following shows how Northwestern performed in these rankings.

Note: While rankings may be a good starting point when you're researching a school, they don't necessarily highlight all of a school's strengths. Don't forget to check out the other details that are available for a school to see if it has what you're looking for in a program.

Bachelor’s Degree Overall Quality & Other Notable Rankings

The public policy major at Northwestern is not ranked on College Factual’s Best Colleges and Universities for Public Policy. This could be for a number of reasons, such as not having enough data on the major or school to make an accurate assessment of its quality.

Ranking Type	Rank
Most Focused Public Policy Bachelor’s Degree Schools	43
Most Popular Public Policy Master’s Degree Schools	97

In 2021, 0 student received their master’s degree in public policy from Northwestern. This is the #98 most popular school for public policy master’s degree candidates in the country.

How Much Do Public Policy Graduates from Northwestern Make?

The median salary of public policy students who receive their bachelor's degree at Northwestern is $40,701. This is great news for graduates of the program, since this figure is 8% higher than the national average of $37,566 for all public policy bachelor's degree recipients.

Public Policy Student Demographics at Northwestern

Take a look at the following statistics related to the make-up of the public policy majors at Northwestern University.

Northwestern Public Policy Bachelor’s Program

During the 2020-2021 academic year, 45 public policy majors earned their bachelor's degree from Northwestern. Of these graduates, 31% were men and 69% were women.

Prospective students may be interested in knowing that this school graduates 21% more racial-ethnic minorities in its public policy bachelor's program than the national average.*

The following table and chart show the race/ethnicity for students who recently graduated from Northwestern University with a bachelor's in public policy.

Race/Ethnicity	Number of Students
Asian	9
Black or African American	2
Hispanic or Latino	9
White	15
International Students	4
Other Races/Ethnicities	6

Northwestern also has a doctoral program available in public policy. In 2021, 0 student graduated with a doctor's degree in this field.

Related Majors

• Public Administration
• Community Organization & Advocacy

Careers That Public Policy Grads May Go Into

A degree in public policy can lead to the following careers. Since job numbers and average salaries can vary by geographic location, we have only included the numbers for IL, the home state for Northwestern University.

Occupation	Jobs in IL	Average Salary in IL
Medical and Health Services Managers	14,050	$121,900
Health Specialties Professors	10,070	$105,140
Education Professors	4,510	$62,280
Social Scientists	650	$78,140
Political Science Professors	540	$89,860

References

*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.

• College Factual
• National Center for Education Statistics
• O*NET Online
• Image Credit: By Madcoverboy at en.wikipedia under License

More about our data sources and methodologies.