A Place for Undergraduate Public Administration Education

Abstract

This paper argues that the focus on graduate-level study in the field of public administration is largely due to the timing of the field’s development and the state of American higher education after World War II. The rapid expansion of access to undergraduate education at a time when the role of government grew considerably to deal with pressing social concerns created both a market for and an interest in public administration in the 1960s and 1970s. It was natural for scholars and students to focus on the specialized, higher order skills provided through graduate education to the neglect of undergraduate education in public administration under such circumstances. Building on the field of curriculum development, it is suggested that sequencing of knowledge for cumulative and continuous learning as presented in Bloom’s Taxonomy is key to properly placing undergraduate programs in the field.