U.S. News and World Report issued its 2023 rankings for the graduate school programs in the U.S. The Heller School of Social Policy and Management at Brandeis was listed as a top 10 public affairs school in two categories: social policy and health management. Currently, Heller is ranked as eighth best for social policy graduate programs in the U.S. and 10th for social policy. Within the entire public affairs category, Heller is ranked within the top 25 percent of graduate schools.
According to past U.S. News rankings data, the Heller School has been a top-ranked social policy school for over a decade. The U.S. News rankings are determined through a survey of numerous deans, directors and department chairs at 267 graduate schools of public affairs across the country.
Heller was founded in 1959, where it was a singular doctoral program. Since then, it has expanded to include six master’s degrees “spanning global and domestic social policy and social impact management,” according to the Heller School webpage. The Masters of Public Policy program at Heller focuses specifically on domestic social policy with a curriculum drawing from research and policy studies. The Social Impact MBA offers graduate students the opportunity to learn about how to take on leadership roles at nonprofit organizations and mission-driven organizations. More details about the other programs are available at the Heller academic website.
The graduate school also offers 10 different research centers and institutes, including the Schneider Institutes for Public Health and Policy, the Institute for Behavioral Health and the Institute for Global Health and Development.
The Heller School and its students were recently featured in Commonwealth, a nonprofit journal of politics, ideas and civic life. Corrinne Thomas, a graduate student in Heller School’s Master’s in Public Policy program, wrote about a recent malfunction and tragedy in the Boston MBTA system and called for lower commuter rail fees. Additionally, Dr. Andrew Kolodny was quoted in GBH News Magazine that detailed how the Massachusetts Trial Court has come to the decision to stop pressuring drug court defendants to detail specific medical treatments for opioid use disorder cases.
