Predictors of Graduate Student Satisfaction in Public Administration Programs

Existing public administration master’s degree programs face challenges of reduced federal funding, increasing competition among programs, and high student expectations of tangible career benefits. Student satisfaction is one characteristic of public administration master’s degree programs that can help enhance the benefits of master’s degree education and improve program quality. Student satisfaction in public administration graduate degree programs has not been extensively studied. Given this gap in the literature, the socialization experiences of students in public administration programs were studied. Approximately 500 current graduate students from various public administration master’s degree programs across the nation participated in the study. Major findings regarding the predictors of student satisfaction are reported in this paper.