Doctor of Philosophy in Education - Education Policy and Program Evaluation

The PhD in Education combines advances in the social sciences, sciences, arts, and humanities with deep expertise in educational research, policy, and practice to train students for careers as academics, researchers, policymakers, and leaders who will improve educational outcomes in the United States and around the world. Candidates for the PhD in Education are affiliated with one of three concentrations: Culture, Institutions and Society, Education Policy and Program Evaluation, or Human Development, Learning and Teaching. The program's concentrations, curricular requirements, and milestones are structured to achieve four goals: to equip students with domain knowledge in education, to provide training in relevant disciplines, to ensure rigorous training in a range of research methods, and to promote the development of new research and knowledge with a transformative impact on education.

Students in the Education Policy and Program Evaluation (EPPE) concentration produce research on the conceptualization, implementation, and evaluation of educational and other public policies relevant to the domains of early childhood, K-12, and postsecondary education, in the US and internationally. They might engage in program or policy evaluation and analysis, measurement and assessment, or the study of policy development, relating to issues such as access to education, teacher effectiveness, school finance, testing and accountability systems, school choice, financial aid, college enrollment and persistence, and more. Work in this concentration is informed by theories and methods from economics, political science, public policy, and sociology, as well as by related disciplines such as history, philosophy, and statistics. Although students research may incorporate some of the same organizational and institutional contexts as the Culture, Institutions and Society concentration, their work is more consistently linked to public policy, programs, and large-scale reforms.

GSAS welcomes applications for admission from individuals who have or will have by the time of matriculation a BA, BS, or equivalent undergraduate degree (for prospective international students, a three- or four-year undergraduate degree from an institution of recognized standing) and actively seeks applicants from groups historically underrepresented in graduate schools.
Applicants who are non-native English speakers and who received their undergraduate degree from an academic institution where English is not the primary language of instruction must prove their English proficiency by earning either a minimum score of 80 on the Internet based test (iBT) of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or a minimum score of 6.5 on the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) Academic test.