Competing for Administrative Brainpower

Abstract

H ow can government improve its efforts to attract and retain more of the outstanding college students for administrative careers in the public service? One approach to these questions is to discover what college students themselves think about public service careers and what aspects of government have appealed most to outstanding students who did enter. We can also try to find out the satisfactions and disillusionments of outstanding students who have entered government. Finally, we can consider the relative effectiveness of the methods now used to recruit college students. To obtain information on these matters, a questionnaire survey was made of three groups: (i) the current federal government interns; (2) graduates of the Fels Institute of Local and State Government, University of Pennsylvania, who are active in local and state administration or in closely related work; (3) political science professors who are closely associated with undergraduates. Of the 195 federal interns surveyed, 59 replied to the questionnaire. The average age of those replying is 28 years; average length of federal service is 2 years. They are in 13 principal departments and agencies. All are college graduates. Their undergraduate majors are quite diverse, but the majority have degrees either in business and economics or in government and history. Almost 50 per cent either have or are now working for a master's degree, most of them in public administration. One hundred of the 175 Fels Institute graduates active in local and state government re-