Best-Kept-Secret Career: Program Analyst

December 11, 2008 RSS Feed Print

Snapshot: Respond to a dirty-bomb scare in New York City. Estimate the resources needed to create a green education initiative in rural Alaska. These are just some of the tasks that could be required of program analysts, who work in federal and local government to provide needed information. Program analysts, often titled management analysts, might also be called on to gather information and write a report on the nation's model tutoring programs or the impact of new legislation on community banks. Most program analysts earn $50,000 to $100,000 annually and receive an excellent government benefits package.

Getting there: Master's degrees, such as in public policy, are often preferred, but many program analysts have just a bachelor's degree or even less, with in-house or outside training added later.

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This career may work out poorly if you want to make a real difference in people's lives, seek real insights about government programs, want to deal with people or want to do high quality work. Depending on the employer, there may be pressure to bend the results a certain way or to draw conclusions not supported by the evidence. Government clients (e.g. state department) have threatened to sue if report findings are not altered. You might spend months or years on a study that few people will read, that does not discover much of use, or that gets shelved by an agency director. Notice how agencies in the Bush administration (and others') bullied agencies to change their report findings, including GAO, HHS, GAO and notice the extremely flawed if not fraudulent nation security studies of NIST and FEMA. Private sector analysts working for clients, without financial independence from them, may experience the same problems. Finally, if you are hired for a project in the private sector, will they have a position for you after the project is completed?

John Smith of IN 2:19PM January 06, 2010

True, there are many valid degree programs available.
U of P is not one of them. As a former hiring manager for a Fortune 500, U of P was the first to be eliminated. U of P was dubbed "cut and paste" University. The on-line curriculum received a bad reputation because of the graduates they produced.
Common complaints for managers were the lack of critical thinking skills, decipehering documents prepared with poor spelling and grammer was a common complaint.
There are a number of brick/mortar schools that DO fit the bill for on-line education. Most community colleges now offer on-line education.
Thomas Edison State has a solid reputation, however, the low per credit tuition comes with a significant amount of hidden fees that the school will not allow you to pay through finanical aid awards.
University Alliance features an on-line program for reputable institutions such as Florida Tech, Notre Dame, Villanova, Thunderbird.
Recommended by many in the military is American Military University/American Public University.
Essentially it is the lesson on doing your homework and interviewing the school. I would check out the creditibility of the degree with professionals. Call recruiting agencies, ask them about different on-line programs and how they are weighted.

Jen of NJ 9:15AM December 14, 2009

John Jay College has launched a fully-accredited online Master of Public Administration program in affiliation with the Association of Inspectors General. The link is here:
http://jjcweb.jjay.cuny.edu/mpa/online
The specialized program focuses on oversight of public agencies and programs, and includes both investigation and evaluation courses, which include program analysis as core skills.
The article is right that there is growth in positions related to regulation, oversight and evaluation of public programs.

Ned Benton of NY 10:57AM September 21, 2009

Best-Kept-Secret Career: Program Analyst

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