The Pardee RAND Graduate School is unique in American higher education. It is the largest public policy analysis Ph.D. program in the nation and the only program based at an independent public policy research organization—the RAND Corporation. Faculty are largely drawn from the RAND Corporation and offer exceptional training and access to some of the world's leading policy practitioners.
All PRGS students receive fellowships to cover their education costs and engage in research projects that provide on-the-job training. Along the way, PRGS students receive an M.Phil. in public policy analysis—equivalent to a master's degree in public policy (MPP). Graduates leave with a Ph.D. in policy analysis and essentially two years of full-time work experience.
PRGS students want to make a difference in the world by helping to shape and lead public policy. Our graduates go on to jobs in government, in the private sector, at universities and other research organizations, and in the non-profit sector. One hundred percent of the 2009-2012 graduates found a job in the field of their choice.
The U.S.-South Korean Extended Deterrence Policy Committee was setup to deter North Korean threats, writes PRGS alum Bruce Bennett (cohort '75). The upcoming summit should ratify the progress of this effort, reassuring both the Korean and U.S. people that these threats are being managed.
If this issue were to be decided on the basis of public health benefits, the outcome would be clear: Condoms indisputably prevent both unintended pregnancies and the spread of sexually transmitted infections, writes PRGS professor Chloe Bird.
In recent years — especially following the economic downturn — states, counties, and cities have looked for ways to reduce costs and maintain basic policing services, leading many to question what the investment in counterterrorism and homeland security has achieved for their jurisdiction, writes PRGS professor Lois Davis.
The path to climate change preparedness should start at the intersection of resilience and robustness — that is, building resilient communities with the individuals and organizations within those communities making robust decisions, ones designed to work well over a wide range of ever-changing conditions, write PRGS professors Rob Lempert and Anita Chandra.
PRGS professor and RAND researcher Gery Ryan has joined the PRGS staff as assistant dean for academic affairs, replacing Jeffrey Wasserman, who stepped down upon his appointment as vice president of RAND and director of RAND Health.
PRGS professor Keith Crane is part of the
Wall Street Journal's "Experts: Energy" panel. This week he answered two questions: "How will the U.S. oil boom change the markets and geopolitics?" and "Should there be a price on carbon emissions, and if so, what’s the best way to do it?"
Lowering the costs of healthy foods in supermarkets increases the amount of fruits, vegetables, and whole grain foods that people eat, while also appearing to reduce consumption of nutritionally less-desirable foods, according to research by PRGS professor Roland Sturm and student Ruopeng An (cohort '08).
PRGS professor Nick Burger has been awarded our first-ever Harold Brown Faculty Fellowship, to conduct research with students Kun Gu and Zhimin Mao (both cohort '11). The team will estimate the greenhouse gas implications of abundant U.S. shale gas resources.
Karl Lorenz, a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School, discusses how to improve palliative care training for health practitioners and better engage patients in the health care decisionmaking process.
PRGS student Todi Mengistu (cohort '07) contributed to RAND's latest report on nation building. The report finds that the benefits of nation-building interventions have exceeded the costs, and the interventions do not need to be transformative to achieve their main objectives.
PRGS professor and alum Cheryl Damberg (cohort '89) testified before Congress. Among her conclusions: "Revising physician payment is a daunting challenge, but one that is absolutely necessary. Performance-based payment reform is vital to driving improvements in health care delivery."
PRGS student Nicole Schmidt (cohort '09) worked with RAND Health colleagues to explore the possibility of adding physician identifiers to the California hospital discharge data set. Their research found that physician-identified data could be useful to a variety of stakeholders without posing a substantial burden to hospitals.
In this video, Jordan Fischbach discusses how RAND helped Louisiana develop its 2012 Coastal Master Plan and key lessons that can make other communities more resilient in the face of natural disasters.
According to research by PRGS student Yashodhara Rana (cohort '09) and colleagues, total U.S. government funding for the Global Methane Initiative, a voluntary international partnership that promotes methane recovery and reuse activities in developing and transition economies, was approximately $54 million between fiscal years 2006 and 2010, with most coming from the Department of State (52 percent) and a large share from the EPA (37 percent).
Given the size of the U.S. annual “health care spend”—$2.7 trillion—summing up the savings associated with very minor cost-saving policy changes is likely to achieve significant aggregate savings, writes PRGS alum Jeffrey Wasserman (cohort '85), acting director of RAND Health and assistant dean for academic affairs at PRGS.
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