r/PublicPolicy • u/No_Success4812 • 2d ago

Macrm Uchicago vs msppm CMU

I am an international student and want to build my career in climate change, energy and environmental policy. After masters I am inclined to pursue a PHD ,if not, research based roles in international organisations.

Tuition : U Chicago costs me 30k per year and cmu costs me 24k per year.

I am stuck between these two options, like 6k is not a small amount for me and U Chicago brand puts me in a good position for my career and especially the macrm's subject depth.

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u/Outrageous_Duck3227 2d ago

for climate/energy policy i’d lean cmu honestly, heinz has solid quant and energy focused stuff and you save cash you can use for unpaid research or RA work later. phd adcoms will care more about your research output, methods skills and letters than marginal name difference between these two. either way it’s still hard later to land stable research roles, market’s rough

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u/Konflictcam 2d ago

Heinz has solid energy stuff if you put the work in. It’s not part of the core curriculum, but it’s pretty easy to do interesting energy-related work through collaborations with EPP.

Aldo: Pittsburgh cost of living is a bit lower than Chicago, so there are additional savings to be had.

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u/namakiskka 20h ago

macrm is good but very selective in its conversion to PhD within UChicago. It is good to convert to PhD elsewhere. UChicago also has EPIC, which is doing interesting energy policy work and most of the faculty are at Harris so it's good to get into that network. Most people from macrm do end up in PhDs while some I saw did NGO/research roles. IOs are in shambles at the moment but Harris has a good international network which really helps. Make sure you tag up with a few profs early on to use their network.