public policy

There are many reasons to choose to pursue a career in the public sector rather than in the business world. Often, people are drawn to public or nonprofit careers because doing so gives them an opportunity to do good and enact change for the better.

Organized public health efforts began in seventeenth-century Europe in response to the plague. Modern western public health systems, including hospitals for the ill and public sanitation services, started developing alongside scientific advances in the early nineteenth century and continue to evolve alongside science and culture today.1

Pursuing a graduate degree usually means a big payoff for your future but it can feel counterintuitive to take off a whole year or two from your career. That’s where part-time degree programs come in. Earning your degree as a part-time student means you can continue to work while you gain relevant skills to move your public sector career forward. But there’s more to it than just avoiding a break in your resume.

When you think of nonprofits, what organizations first come to mind? You might initially think of Doctors Without Borders, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Red Cross or UNICEF. According to the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS), nonprofit organizations include any organization that is not organized or operated for the benefit of private interests, and does not promise any net holdings to the benefit of any private shareholders or individuals.1

If you’re looking for a graduate degree that could help you on your way to establishing yourself as a leader in a compelling field, have you looked into the Master of Public Administration (MPA)? While it might not be as common as its private sector counterpart, the Master of Business Administration (MBA), it can help you build comparable skills for leadership in nonprofit organizations, the government as well as many for-profit businesses.

In 1996 Congress passed the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) to decrease the instances of litigation brought to the courts from incarcerated people. For the 25 years since the PLRA was signed into law by President Clinton, prison reform and advocacy groups have challenged the act as another obstacle to justice for the nearly 2.3 million prisoners in the U.S.1, specifically by denying equal access to the courts of the United States.

As with jobs in all industries, jobs in the public sector have certain advantages and disadvantages. While each person might have their own opinion of what constitutes a positive or negative aspect of any career, read on for our take on the pros and cons of working in the public sector.

If recent newspaper headlines are to be believed, many people are wondering if the U.S. government is getting too large. While it’s true that over 15% of the workforce is involved in the military, public and national service, the size of the U.S. government proportionate to the total population has actually shrunk in the last 50 years. Beyond that, we’re facing an aging government workforce, of which one third will be eligible to retire by 2025.1

According to The Balance Small Business, a website providing guidance on entrepreneurship and management, economies of countries including the United States are divided between public and private sectors (or sections), for the purpose of considering economic activity and the contribution of each sector to the gross domestic product. The basic distinction between the two sectors? “Businesses that make a profit commonly represent the private sector, while government agencies tend to represent the public sector.”

Public sector government agencies are present in every city and town around the world, with employees undertaking a wide variety of projects aimed at improving their local community. These involve things like health and safety, transport infrastructure, parks and recreation, sewage and water, schools, hospitals and municipal buildings. As a public service, these agencies rely on government funding and, in many cases, don’t have access to the same high budgets that private sector companies have.