Alumni Survey
The data NASPAA collects in this survey provides important information to our schools and the public regarding our alumni's thoughts on the education they've received and how getting their MPA/MPP has impacted their job prospects.
In addition, the data we collect will allow us to provide more detailed information to prospective students in the field regarding the types of jobs and earning power they can expect upon receiving an MPA/MPP degree.
Salary Data
Frequently Asked Questions
NASPAA is surveying alumni three years out from graduation, so in 2019 it is the 2015-2016 cohort (Summer, Fall, Spring).
By surveying alumni three years out from graduation, NASPAA will be able to compare not only across our schools and programs, but also the data collected on MBA alumni by the Financial Times. Surveying alumni three years out also allows us to best see the impact of the degree.
Get started by logging into the NASPAA Public Affairs Education Data Center. In the Basic Info tab, next to the edit button, you will see a new button “Alumni Survey Link”. Clicking this button will provide you a unique link to send to your alumni. NASPAA is aware that the link is long. Please feel free to use a URL shortener to send out your unique link, such as bitly, tinyurl, ow.ly, or goo.gl.
Schools participating in the survey only have two responsibilities. The first is to email your unique survey link to alumni from the cohort being surveys and encourage them to participate. NASPAA has created convenient outreach materials located above, or you can create your own materials. Distributing the survey is easy, fast, secure and confidential. The second is to notify NASPAA how many students are in that cohort so we can tabulate the participation rates.
Yes. After completion of the survey, NASPAA will scrub the raw data of any individual identifiers. The data will then be provided back to the program in excel form. If a school has so few responses as to make the data potentially individually identifiable, NASPAA will only provide aggregate data.
NASPAA will eventually be adding alumni survey aggregate data to the school profiles that are currently accessible through NASPAA’s School Search. Schools will also have the opportunity to opt out of their data being made public. However, schools that opt out must opt out completely, and cannot pick and choose which data are made publicly available.
The Data Committee is finalizing the participation rate thresholds that must be met before data is made public. Small programs data will be masked where necessary to protect individual privacy.
NASPAA is committed to being FERPA, Antitrust, and Department of Education compliant with regards to data privacy and the release of data. NASPAA has adopted the following policy regarding salary data: “NASPAA will never use the alumni survey data in an individually identifiable way. All salary data collected will be aggregated to help show incoming students the types of salaries they can expect upon graduation.”