For poor and low-income families, federal programs such as Medicaid, Child care, SNAP and child nutrition programs are a lifeline every day. Some programs also have policies that consider more than income eligibility, such as number of hours of work, disability, and immigration status. Budget choices have a significant impact on policy intentions. Students will learn about and analyze the major federal programs and federal budgets for these policy areas; understand from data the impact of such programs and policies; and be introduced to significant advocacy efforts and considerations that shaped hese policy decisions.
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Advanced special topics focusing on an interdisciplinary topic related to Public Policy. Permission Required
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Introduces students to the creation of law through the legislative process with a special focus on the Maryland General Assembly.
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Examines the role of women in the leadership process including the participation of women as activists, voters, advocates, public leaders and as agents of change through various avenues including, among others, public service (elected and appointed), the media, community service, political organizations, and the nonprofit sector.
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Furthers students understanding of topics in leadership, social innovation, resource development, community mobilization through networks, and the role of policy making in creating change. This course will further students understanding of the creation and leadership of nonprofits, social ventures, governance and boards; strategic planning and partnerships; advocacy and public policy processes; community outreach; working in teams, effective communications, and cross-sector approaches to scaling up social impact.
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Offers students supervised internship placements in state and local political or public policy organizations. Permission Required.
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Utilizes our unique location in the Washington, DC region to create a laboratory within which to analyze local, regional, national and international policy problems. Students will be put into teams and assigned to real and timely policy cases. The course will include meetings and field trips with local leaders in the field, ideally connected to the cases. Student will then expand and apply their use of policy analysis and evaluation skills to define those problems, analyze alternative responses, devise appropriate strategies for implementation, and evaluate the success of the proposed policy and implementation. The course will conclude with team presentations to local leaders and faculty. This distinctive course will serve to prepare students for their client- based senior capstone course. Restricted to students who have earned a minimum of 60 credits; and must be in a major in PLCY.
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Course designed to create intelligent consumers of policy research and enable students to understand the research done by others with a sufficiently skeptical eye to allow them to determine whether the findings of the research are valid given the assumptions made and methods used. This will involve, in part, thinking about the various problems in research design or conduct that could lead to faulty conclusions. It will also involve being able to differentiate between credible sources of information and those that are not objective. At the conclusion of the course, students should be able to differentiate objective evidence from political argumentation. Restricted to students in a major in PLCY. 
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Prerequisite(s): STAT100

Applied course in public finance, including introductions to resource mobilization (including taxation), macroeconomic policy, key public expenditure policies, and government budgetary processes and politics. The course will build on the foundations from ECON 200 to address the specific application of public finance principles to solving public problems. The course will focus on the principles of welfare economics (including market failure), economic principles as applied to particular spending programs and tax choices, and issues and institutions involved in the allocation and management of resources both at a national and subnational level. The focus of the course is on these issues from both a domestic and global perspective. At the conclusion of the course, students should be able to apply the tools of economics to inform societal and governmental choices, and understand how those choices are made in practice. 
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Prerequisite(s): ECON200

Understanding pluralism and how groups and individuals coexist in society is an essential part of the public policy process. This course will examine the ways in which the diverse experiences of race, gender, ethnicity, class, orientation, identity, and religion impact the understanding of and equitable delivery of public policy. The examination of how identity development shapes our understanding of society and influences the decision-making process is central to students’ shaping policy that is truly for the people. This course will equip students with the skills needed to analyze pluralism and draw conclusions about the application of various theories to public policy issues. 
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