The University of Maryland School of Public Policy is one of 14 schools at the University of Maryland, College Park. The school is located inside the Capital Beltway.

On October 26, 1978, University of Maryland President John S. Toll appointed the Committee on a School of Public Affairs to pursue the question of whether the College Park campus should establish a new school. With the support of the Sloan foundation and key individuals such as U.S. Senator Joseph Tydings and publisher Philip Merrill, the Maryland School of Public Affairs was established on the campus of the University of Maryland, College Park in 1981. By April 1981, Albert Bowker was appointed the first dean of the school and a group of faculty was recruited. The first seven faculty included Allen Schick, Robert Pastor, Catherine Kelleher, Frank Levy, Peyton Young, George Eads and Mark Winer. The school's doors opened in 1982 and degrees were conferred on a dozen students during the school's first graduation exercises in 1984.

The School of Public Affairs changed its name to the School of Public Policy in 2004.

The School of Public Policy expanded to offer an undergraduate program in the Spring of 2017 aimed at developing skills necessary to have a positive impact on the global community.

The school is a full member of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs (APSIA), a group of schools of public policy, public administration, and international studies.

The school enrolls close to 500 graduate students and offers full-time and part-time Master of Public Policy (MPP) and Master of Public Management (MPM) degrees, as well as a Ph.D. in Policy Studies.

Master of Public Policy

Master of Public Management The school offers the MPM program in two tracks for students who have at least five or more years of professional policy or management-related experience after their undergraduate studies. The 36-credit, policy-oriented curriculum tracks the MPP curriculum with 12 fewer elective credits. The Executive Master of Public Management (EXPM) follows a prescribed 30-credit, management-oriented curriculum. Many EXPM students attend evening classes twice a week in Washington, D.C. Students move through the program as a cohort and have the opportunity to participate in numerous enrichment activities.

Joint Master's Programs (MPP/MBA, MPP/MS, and MPP/JD) The school has also established joint degree programs with the University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering, the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences Conservation Biology program, the Robert H. Smith School of Business, and the University of Maryland School of Law in Baltimore.

The centers and institutes located within the Maryland School of Public Policy offer students opportunities to work on research projects with practitioners who make significant contributions to global and domestic policy.

• Apfel, Kenneth S., former commissioner of the U.S. Social Security Administration.
• Bhargava, Alok, econometrician working on issues of food policies and population health in developing and developed countries.
• Daly, Herman, pioneer in the field of ecological economics and steady-state theory, senior economist in the Environment Department of the World Bank.
• Galston, William, former domestic policy advisor to Bill Clinton and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution
• Gansler, Jacques, former U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics.
• Schelling, Thomas, pioneer in game theory and winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Economics.
• Schick, Allen, fellow at the Brookings Institution and widely recognized authority on the federal budget.
• Schwab, Susan, former U.S. Trade Representative, former president and CEO of the University System of Maryland Foundation, and former dean of the UMD School of Public Policy.

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