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Policy officer education requirements
Updated January 8, 2025
4 min read
There are several educational requirements to become a policy officer. Policy officers usually study political science, business, or international relations. 64% of policy officers hold a bachelor's degree, and 25% hold an master's degree. We analyzed 341 real policy officer resumes to see exactly what policy officer education sections show.
The most common colleges for policy officers are the University of Maryland - College Park and the University of Maryland - College Park.
There are also many online policy officer courses to help get the education required to be a policy officer.
What education do you need to become a policy officer?
What degree do you need to be a policy officer?
- Bachelor's, 64%
- Master's, 25%
- Doctorate, 5%
- Associate, 3%
- Other Degrees, 3%
What should I major in to become a policy officer?
- Political Science, 16%
- Business, 14%
- Economics, 8%
- Other Majors, 53%
Most common colleges for policy officers
| Policy officer common college | Percentages |
|---|---|
| University of Maryland - College Park | 10.91% |
| United States Naval Academy | 9.09% |
| United States Military Academy | 7.27% |
| College of William and Mary | 7.27% |
| University of Phoenix | 7.27% |
Best majors for policy officers
| Rank | Major | Percentages |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Political Science | 16.1% |
| 2 | Business | 14.1% |
| 3 | International Relations | 9.4% |
| 4 | Economics | 8.3% |
| 5 | Criminal Justice | 6.8% |
Best colleges for policy officers
The best colleges for policy officers are Northwestern University, University of Pennsylvania, and Carnegie Mellon University.
A policy officer with advanced education typically earns a higher salary and has access to better jobs. That's why Zippia looked into the best colleges for policy officers. We based this list on several metrics: admissions rate, retention rate, mean earnings of graduates, the ratio of working vs. non-working students ten years after admission, the average cost of attendance, and median debt for graduates who become policy officers.
1. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
In-state tuition
$55,584
Enrollment
10,764
2. Northwestern University
Evanston, IL • Private
In-state tuition
$54,568
Enrollment
8,451
3. University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA • Private
In-state tuition
$56,225
Enrollment
19,548
4. University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX • Private
In-state tuition
$10,610
Enrollment
40,329
5. SUNY at Binghamton
Vestal, NY • Private
In-state tuition
$9,808
Enrollment
13,990
6. Northeastern University
Boston, MA • Private
In-state tuition
$51,522
Enrollment
13,760
7. Lehigh University
Bethlehem, PA • Private
In-state tuition
$52,930
Enrollment
5,030
8. George Washington University, The
Washington, DC • Private
In-state tuition
$55,230
Enrollment
12,161
9. New York University
New York, NY • Private
In-state tuition
$51,828
Enrollment
26,339
10. Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA • Private
In-state tuition
$55,465
Enrollment
6,483
20 best online courses for policy officers
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1. Predictive Analytics for Business
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2. AI for Business Leaders
Master the foundations of artificial intelligence so you can strategically implement AI in your company. Leverage machine learning technologies to power corporate growth, increase efficiency, and enhance customer experiences...
3. Global Health Policy
In this course, learners will become familiar with principles and theories of global health problems, and major challenges and controversies in improving global population health as well as practical applications of quantitative methods to analyze and interpret issues and challenges for policy. Topics will include health and foreign policy, health governance, acute disease surveillance, non-communicable diseases, burden of disease, universal health coverage, health systems strengthening, health...
4. Global Energy and Climate Policy
The Global Energy and Climate Policy course offers an introduction to the theoretical and practical understanding of how energy and climate change policies are designed, shaped, advocated and implemented. As energy markets go truly global, domestic energy policies are becoming more and more entangled with wider issues of international governance. Concurrently, the urgent need to mitigate and adapt to climate change and transition to a low-carbon future is adding a further layer of complexity...
5. 2017 Great Decisions: Foreign Policy Association
Learn about leading foreign policy challenges confronting U.S. policy makers and the American public...
6. Master Public Policy Analysis In Six Easy Steps: The Basics
An Introduction to Policy Analysis Concepts and Practice For The Real World!...
7. Social Policy for Social Services & Health Practitioners
In the U.S., social policy accounts for two-thirds of government spending. Knowing how policies are constructed, what values underlie them, and how they succeed or fail makes everyone more effective at work or in their civic role. This specialization includes an HONORS track in which learners will complete a professional social policy analysis.\n\nTeachers, health care workers, police, and social workers interact with policy daily, but all of us should care about the impact and effectiveness of...
8. FinTech Law and Policy
Being a successful FinTech firm requires more than just great technology; it also requires an understanding of the laws and regulations applicable to your business. This course will provide you with that understanding. You will learn about the critical legal, regulatory, and policy issues associated with cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings, online lending, new payments and wealth management technologies, and financial account aggregators. In addition, you will learn how regulatory agencies...
9. Master Public Policy Analysis: Advanced
Learn Advanced Policy Analysis Concepts and Practice For The Real World!...
10. Mastering Group Policy on Windows Server
An IT person's guide to managing Active Directory Users and Computers with Group Policy...
11. Trade & investment: evidence-based policies for development
This MOOC prepares students that want to analyse trade and investment policies of developing countries and emerging markets. We couch you for the task of giving evidence-based policy. For students interested in policy advise the course brings a sound understanding of what can and what cannot be done with well-established theories and state-of-the-art research. For students interested in research the asset of this course is to learn how to effectively communicate research findings in a policy...
12. Justice and Equity in Technology Policy
More than ever, technology is shaping, and being shaped by, public policy. This has an enormous impact, particularly for marginalized communities. The artificial intelligence and computer algorithms increasingly driving government and industry decisions—from the allocation of social services to hiring—are reflecting and reinforcing social biases towards women, people of color, and disabled people, among others. Global climate change is having a disproportionately negative impact on low- and...
13. Active Directory & Group Policy Administration for IT Techs
Active Directory & Group Policy Administration Basics for Helpdesk and Desktop / IT Support Technicians...
14. Engineering Life: Synbio, Bioethics & Public Policy
Synbio is a diverse field with diverse applications, and the different contexts (e.g., gain-of-function research, biofuels) raise different ethical and governance challenges. The objective of this course is to increase learners’ awareness and understanding of ethical and policy/governance issues that arise in the design, conduct and application of synthetic biology. The course will begin with a short history of recombinant DNA technology and how governance of that science developed and evolved,...
15. Disaster Risk Management and Korean Policies
In the past, developing countries such as Korea lacked guidelines for exploring effective policies for disaster-resilient growth, resulting in unnecessary sacrifices in terms of time, resources, and human capital. Through the lessons learned by Korea, currently developing countries facing socio-economic development can build disaster resilience without sacrifices. Utilizing Korea's sound practices and institutional reforms, this course provides a valuable roadmap to prevent and mitigate the...
16. The Making of US Foreign Policy
Welcome to The Making of US Foreign Policy course! This course seeks to provide you with a comprehensive understanding of the United States’ Foreign Policy (USFP). Through this course, you will look at the evolution of USFP from its founding to the present. You will analyze the role of the institutions which play a role in defining USFP. You will also explore how the USFP relies on trade and economic interdependence to define global economic relations...
17. Central Banks and Monetary Policy
The purpose of this course is to provide you with an understanding of central bank policies and how such policies affect financial markets and the economy. The main aim of this course is to provide you with insights about the macroeconomic relationships between interest rates, inflation, and unemployment that allow you to assess central bank actions and appreciate how this action will affect the economy. The ability to extract relevant information from financial market and economic data about...
18. The Art and Science of Economic Policy
Economic policy affects every citizen. And economic policymaking is best done as a collaborative process with a wide range of stakeholders. This course brings an understanding of the relevance and impacts of economic policymaking in everyday life, and the ways for citizens to be involved in shaping economic policy, in an accessible and interesting manner. Taught by Dr. Vijay Kelkar and Dr. Ajay Shah, along with Aromar Revi, Director, IIHS, the course synthesises more than one hundred years of...
19. Bats, Ducks, and Pandemics: An Introduction to One Health Policy
Welcome to "Bats, Ducks, and Pandemics: An Introduction to One Health Policy". One Health is the concept that human, animal, and environmental/ecosystem health are linked. The concept provides a useful framework for examining complex health issues such as food safety and security, emerging and vector-borne diseases, and antimicrobial resistance. It can be used to analyze government policies to determine if they are effective in improving health and well-being. Agriculture is the foundation of...
20. Creating Routing Policies to Handle Traffic with AWS Route53
In this 2-hour long project based course, we will look at how to handle and divert website traffic to multiple servers using Routing Policies in AWS Route 53. We will look at how you can configure different types of Routing Policies. We will start off with Simple Routing Policy which can be used to divert traffic to multiple servers / IP’s randomly. Then we will look at Weight Routing Policy which allows you to split your traffic based on different weights assigned. We will then move on to...
Top 10 most affordable universities for policy officers
The most affordable schools for policy officers are Baruch College of the City University of New York, university of florida, and brigham young university.
If the best universities for policy officers are out of your price range, check out these affordable schools. After factoring in in-state tuition and fees, the average cost of attendance, admissions rate, average net price, and mean earnings after six years, we found that these are the most affordable schools for policy officers.
1. Baruch College of the City University of New York
New York, NY • Private
In-state tuition
$7,262
Cost of attendance
14,046
2. University of Florida
Gainesville, FL • Private
In-state tuition
$6,381
Cost of attendance
21,034
3. Brigham Young University
Provo, UT • Private
In-state tuition
$5,620
Cost of attendance
18,136
4. University of South Florida
Tampa, FL • Private
In-state tuition
$6,410
Cost of attendance
20,456
5. Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL • Private
In-state tuition
$5,656
Cost of attendance
21,623
6. USF Sarasota-Manatee
Sarasota, FL • Private
In-state tuition
$5,587
Cost of attendance
13,043
7. California State University - Fullerton
Fullerton, CA • Private
In-state tuition
$6,886
Cost of attendance
17,645
8. California State University - Bakersfield
Bakersfield, CA • Private
In-state tuition
$7,309
Cost of attendance
16,714
9. Florida International University
Miami, FL • Private
In-state tuition
$6,556
Cost of attendance
19,434
10. USF St. Petersburg
St. Petersburg, FL • Private
In-state tuition
$5,821
Cost of attendance
19,849
Top 10 hardest universities to get into for policy officers
The hardest universities for policy officers to get into are Northwestern University, University of Pennsylvania, and Carnegie Mellon University.
Some great schools for policy officers are hard to get into, but they also set your career up for greater success. The list below shows the most challenging universities to get into for policy officers based on an institution's admissions rates, average SAT scores accepted, median ACT scores accepted, and mean earnings of students six years after admission.
1. Northwestern University
Evanston, IL • Private
Admissions rate
8%
SAT average
1,508
2. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
Admissions rate
8%
SAT average
1,492
3. Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA • Private
Admissions rate
17%
SAT average
1,507
4. University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA • Private
Admissions rate
13%
SAT average
1,445
5. Northeastern University
Boston, MA • Private
Admissions rate
19%
SAT average
1,466
6. New York University
New York, NY • Private
Admissions rate
20%
SAT average
1,419
7. Washington University in St Louis
Saint Louis, MO • Private
Admissions rate
15%
SAT average
1,506
8. Boston University
Boston, MA • Private
Admissions rate
22%
SAT average
1,420
9. Lehigh University
Bethlehem, PA • Private
Admissions rate
22%
SAT average
1,380
10. Harvard University
Cambridge, MA • Private
Admissions rate
5%
SAT average
1,520
Top 10 easy-to-apply-to universities for policy officers
The easiest schools for policy officers to get into are Holy Names University, mount saint mary's university, and barry university.
Some schools are much easier to get into. If you want to start your career as a policy officer without much hassle, check out the list of schools where you will be accepted in no time. We compiled admissions rates, average SAT scores, average ACT scores, and average salary of students six years after graduation to uncover which were the easiest schools to get into for policy officers.
1. Holy Names University
Oakland, CA • Private
Admissions rate
70%
SAT average
849
2. Mount Saint Mary's University
Los Angeles, CA • Private
Admissions rate
84%
SAT average
1,031
3. Barry University
Miami, FL • Private
Admissions rate
91%
SAT average
1,006
4. Oklahoma Wesleyan University
Bartlesville, OK • Private
Admissions rate
68%
SAT average
964
5. University of North Texas at Dallas
Dallas, TX • Private
Admissions rate
83%
SAT average
992
6. Notre Dame de Namur University
Belmont, CA • Private
Admissions rate
82%
SAT average
983
7. University of the Incarnate Word
San Antonio, TX • Private
Admissions rate
88%
SAT average
1,044
8. La Roche College
Pittsburgh, PA • Private
Admissions rate
99%
SAT average
1,008
9. Notre Dame College
Cleveland, OH • Private
Admissions rate
90%
SAT average
994
10. University of Baltimore
Baltimore, MD • Private
Admissions rate
78%
SAT average
1,020
Average policy officer salary by education level
| Policy officer education level | Policy officer salary |
|---|---|
| Master's Degree | $124,280 |
| Bachelor's Degree | $117,060 |
| Doctorate Degree | $124,267 |
| Some College/ Associate Degree | $98,055 |
Policy officer education FAQs
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Updated January 8, 2025
Updated January 8, 2025