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Master of Science in Higher Education Administration and Policy

• Graduate & Professional
• Higher Education Administration and Policy
• MS in Higher Education Administration & Policy

About the Degree

Northwestern’s master of science in higher education administration and policy degree is a 12-course professional master's program that prepares graduates to work throughout the higher education landscape at colleges and universities, state and federal government agencies, and higher education focused consulting firms and non-profits. Higher Education-focused coursework includes law and ethics, assessment, budgeting, student development theory, policy, diversity equity and inclusion, leadership, and function-specific topics like enrollment management, global partnerships, and crisis management. Graduates complete a three-term long master’s research project, similar to a master’s thesis, and a 400-hour internship (which can be waived for students with significant higher education experience). Full-time students complete the degree in 4 terms (1 year) while part-time students complete the degree in 18 months to 5 years.

Master of Science in Higher Education Administration and Policy Curriculum Overview

Our curriculum is designed to expose students to the full institutional and social context of the American higher education system. The course of study helps students to consider all of the important factors and stakeholders that will impact their professional practice.

View Curriculum

One Degree. Three Paths.

The master's degree can be completed on either a full-time or part-time basis. Full-time students can complete the degree in four (4) quarters / (12) twelve months. Part-time students can complete the degree in as little as (6) quarters / (18) eighteen months.

*Part-time students with previous or current work experience in Higher Education may waive the internship requirement.

Degree Advantages

Broad curriculum.

• Designed to expose students to the full institutional and social context of the American higher education system.
• Helps students to consider all of the important factors and stakeholders that will impact their professional practice.
• Experience with a wide range of careers and functions within higher education gives graduates career flexibility and helps them discover what types of positions most closely fit their interests.

Diversity as a Valued Resource

• Students come from a vast array of educational and professional backgrounds. Some students have years of experience in higher education, and others are just launching their careers.
• Still others are making career changes, often from fields such as law, teaching, engineering, banking and many others.
• This diversity adds depth to classroom discussions as students share their experience and viewpoints with their peers in a uniquely collaborative context.

Research and Inquiry

• Conduct in-depth research on a current issue in higher education and contribute to the knowledge in their field.
• Gain research and assessment skills that you will utilize continuously in your professional practice.
• Address the real-world problems that exist in higher education today through systematic study and deliberate action.

Authentic Experience

• Students' own passions and experiences guide their learning.
• Our courses offer flexibility for students to examine areas of particular interest within each topic.
• The Master's Project and internship experience(s) give students the opportunity to deepen their understanding of the issues within higher education that are most important to them.

Connecting Theory to Practice

• Courses are taught by practitioners and researchers with a wealth of experience in higher education.
• These instructors help students connect what they are learning in the classroom with what they will encounter in their professional practice.
• Students who are working full-time or completing an internship can start implementing what they learn in their courses right away.

Exceptional Career Placement

• More than 90 percent of our graduates have jobs within three months of graduation.
• The program offers a variety of high-quality career and networking services, including interviewing and resume workshops, networking opportunities, salary negotiation workshops, career panels with practitioners in the field of higher education, and one-on-one career coaching.
• Additionally, students benefit from a strong network of talented colleagues that includes classmates, instructors and distinguished alumni.

Flexible Scheduling

• The master's degree can be completed on either a full-time or part-time basis.
• Full-time students can complete the degree in four (4) quarters / twelve (12) months.
• Part-time students can complete the degree in as little as (6) quarters / eighteen (18) months years.
• Each course meets just once per week in the evenings to allow students to work or obtain internships during the day.
• Full-time students can start program in either Summer or Fall term.
• Part-time students can start the program in all terms except Spring term.

Our Students

“ I must say that the MSHE community is so humble and a close, well-knit family that everyone cares for one another. ”

— Jay Dobaria, MS’23

Explore your next steps.

• ATTEND AN INFO SESSION
• APPLY FOR THE DEGREE

Higher Education Administration and Policy at Northwestern

Explore our broader academic offerings in this field, as well as faculty, courses, news and more.

• MORE ON HIGHER EDUCATION ADMINISTRATION AND POLICY

Contact Higher Education Administration and Policy

Our staff is available to provide in-person assistance Monday-Thursday 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Remote office hours are Friday 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

847-491-7526 [email protected] 1800 Sherman Avenue, Suite 7-300 Evanston, IL 60208 Northwestern University

High Impact Practices in Higher Ed Need an Equity Framework

Author’s Note: On Nov. 8, 2021, Harris students received from Dean Baicker the shocking news that our classmate Samantha (Sam) Burton, MPP ’22, had passed away several days prior due to a sudden illness.  

In her honor, below is a Research-in-Review of a paper she co-authored with undergraduate mentors Dr. Valerie Chepp and Dr. Sarah Greenman. It was accepted by Teaching in Higher Education on Oct. 17, 2021 and published a week after her death on Nov. 10, 2021.

Following the Research-in-Review is an interview with Dr. Chepp and Dr. Greenman discussing Sam’s contributions to the paper and their recollections about working with her.

Valerie Chepp is an Associate Staff Qualitative Researcher in the Lerner Research Institute at the Cleveland Clinic and Associate Professor of Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University. Previously, she served as Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of the Social Justice Program at Hamline University. She holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Maryland, an MA in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago, and a BA in Sociology and Women’s Studies from the University of Wisconsin.

Sarah J. Greenman is an Assistant Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice in Hamline University’s Department of Criminal Justice and Forensic Science, specializing in victimization, sanctioning, and deterrence. Greenman received her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Carleton College and her Master’s and PhD from the University of Maryland Criminology and Criminal Justice Program.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Research in Review

Ask a college graduate to reflect on what undergraduate experience influenced their trajectory the most, and it is likely rare that it will have occurred in a traditional classroom setting, at least these days. Perhaps they went on a life-altering alternative spring break, found a mentor through an internship, or learned a new language studying abroad. Maybe they formed strong bonds with their classmates in a first-year seminar, showed off their intellectual growth in an ePortfolio, or performed research alongside a professor.

Each of these are examples of what is known within higher education literature as “High Impact Practices,” or HIPs. These practices are grouped together because they share a set of effective pedagogical characteristics, such as increasing exposure to diversity, allowing students to interact directly with faculty members, and giving students the opportunity to apply what they learn to situations outside university walls. Research into how they improve student outcomes makes them sound like a panacea, showing that participation in HIPs is associated with improved student learning, higher student self-esteem , enhanced post-graduation job prospects , and more. These effects are cumulative as students participate in more HIPs.

In “High-impact educational practices, leveling the playing field or perpetuating inequity?” authors Sarah J. Greenman, Valerie Chepp, and Samantha Burton tap the brakes on the enthusiasm for HIPs. As promising as HIPs appear to be, Greenman et al. point out the inequitable distribution and access to these types of programs, and that the very students which universities have historically underserved—students of color, disabled students, low-income and first-generation students—are the ones with the least access to HIPs and their benefits. If advantaged students are disproportionally reaping the rewards of HIPs, then HIPs are increasing inequality rather than decreasing it .

To remedy this the authors propose that practitioners apply an equity lens to designing HIPs and evaluating their results. While some research has been done which shows that the effect of HIPs is different based on the student’s identity, they argue that a critical and intersectional approach is needed to understand why some students benefit from HIPs more than others and how to make HIPs accessible to the students who need them most.

Greenman et al. share three categories of improvements to HIPs that can be found in the literature to enhance access. The first is offering “modified and tailored approaches” to HIPs based on an intersectional understanding of the dynamics that prevent certain students from participating. An example the authors give is offering study abroad opportunities of varying lengths, costs, and levels of accessibility. The authors point out that this accommodation would not only give underserved students access to these programs, but also could help students in certain situations such as those with rigid jobs, student athletes, and others not specifically targeted.

The second type of improvement to HIPs that the authors classify is to restructure how they are offered at an institutional level. Rather than allow them to remain optional, which could be an issue if certain students are more likely to opt into them than others, several schools are either requiring all students to complete multiple HIPs from a list before they graduate or making them a critical element of student success initiatives targeted at underserved student groups. This intervention is especially valuable early in a student’s college career, given the positive effect HIPs have on retention rates.

The third and final category of improvement is increasing the resources available to students, faculty, and staff for the creation and management of HIPs. From a student perspective, scholarships for study abroad programs could be targeted at specific groups of students, food and travel could be subsidized for internships off-campus, or on-campus housing could be converted into learning communities. From a faculty and staff perspective, offering HIPs is time and labor intensive, and when faculty and staff are overworked, taking the time and energy to ensure HIPs are offered equitably can be even more of a struggle.

HIPs are a hodgepodge of interventions that are effective but have historically been designed by—and offered to—traditionally privileged groups. The authors issue a call to action: “We need to interrogate what makes a particular experience high impact, who defines high impact, and how we define high impact.” “ HIPs hold the promise of compensating for the barriers underserved students face . Going forward, the implementation of HIPs and their evaluation must be explicitly equity-focused if their goal is to reduce inequality.

Interview  

Adam (Chicago Policy Review): How did each of you first meet Sam? How did this collaboration first come about?

Sarah Greenman: I’ll let you talk first [Valerie], because I met Sam through you.

Valerie Chepp: I was the Director of the Social Justice program at Hamline University [Sam’s undergraduate alma mater]. I was also a professor in that program, and I taught the Introduction to Social Justice class which Sam took. I remember exactly when she took it, it was the semester of Trump’s election. It was a very heated class in some ways because we’re talking about issues of social justice, and we had a student working on Trump’s campaign in that class.

She subsequently declared a minor in Social Justice; she majored in Political Science. Then she did a couple of internships, and I was her faculty advisor—she worked for Women Winning, an organization committed to electing women to office. She had a great final project where she created a little website as if she was running for office with what her policy positions would look like. She was really committed to issues of gender policy and justice.

I continued to meet with Sam for her Social Justice minor, we would meet often. For the Introduction class, I had a Teaching Apprentice—I would pick an advanced student who performed well in the class to serve as a peer educator—and Sam was my Teaching Apprentice. Sarah and I started working on this paper, and when we were thinking of a student who would be good to pull in, Sam’s name rose to the top .

Sarah: We hadn’t done much work on it before Sam came in. Sam came in and did most of the literature review for us. We then worked with her throughout the whole project.

Valerie: She was graduating, and she did much of the work the summer after she graduated. She went above and beyond.

Sarah: She was working on it over graduation weekend. We met with her the Friday before graduation and she was like, “Sure, I’ll keep working on it!” and I was like, “Are you sure you don’t have other stuff you’d rather do this weekend?” and she was like, “No, I’ll get it done!”

Adam: So the literature review was her major contribution to the paper? How else was she involved?

Sarah: When we started this project, we didn’t have a clear direction, so she did a really, really broad literature review. I mean she was looking at all high impact educational practices, all types of different underserved groups. She did a lot of work for that, as we developed the paper. Then she read the draft and we talked through some ideas with her, since she was the one who had done the literature review.

Valerie: Also, when I read the abstract…

Sarah: Oh yeah, she wrote some of the abstract.

Adam: Abstracts are hard. That’s impressive.

Valerie: That first sentence is directly pulled from Sam’s writing.

Sarah: She also did a first take at an organizing draft after the literature review, to weave the sources together. Then we took it from there.

Adam: What led you to take on this project?

Sarah: I’m a criminologist, so we have different disciplines, and we were talking about [where we] overlap. We’re both passionate about teaching, so that’s how we started talking about it. At Hamline we have a large percentage of traditionally underserved students who are not able to do the traditional high impact learning practices like study abroad, so we were talking about that—what’s going on here and trying to figure out what we can do differently. We started really thinking, “How do we know what’s currently being done and working? And who is it working for?”

Adam: Both of you wrote recommendation letters for Sam—could you talk about what her interest was in policy school, and how she planned to use the degree?

Sarah: I know she was interested in reproductive rights. When we met while working on the paper, we spent a long time talking about what kind of graduate school she wanted to go to, whether policy or something else, and reproductive rights came up a little bit.

Valerie: She applied to really strong programs, as she should have because she was a really strong student. She was very committed to leveling the playing field and working to create a more just world for marginalized groups, and doing that through the lens of policy making.

Sarah: I think it’s also worth noting that at Hamline not that many students go on to grad school. I know there’s some schools where everybody goes to grad school, or like 50%. Here, it’s a handful of students at most.

Valerie: And then, to go to Harris—to even have the wherewithal to believe that you belong somewhere like that is really noteworthy. She was so wonderful and bright. I’m so glad she knew our paper was going to be published and that we’d made the final set of revisions.

Adam: Do you have any closing thoughts?

Sarah:   I think what really stands out to me is her dedication. I joked about her working on graduation weekend, but it’s true, she was working on graduation weekend! And then after she graduated, she was working a job and still continued to work on this. Again, that is not normal for a Hamline student, or any undergraduate student. She went above and beyond.

Greenman, Sarah J., Valerie Chepp, and Samantha Burton. “High-Impact Educational Practices: Leveling the Playing Field or Perpetuating Inequity?” Teaching in Higher Education , November 10, 2021, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2021.2000384 .

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Education policy: How Harris and Trump differ on K-12, higher education and more

When it comes to education, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have vastly different views for the nation.

Several unions representing educators and administrators -- including the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and the American Federation of School Administrators -- have endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

Former federal education leaders President Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Education William Bennett and Reagan's Under Secretary of Education Gary Bauer have registered their support for Trump for President. Trump's Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has said she would work for Trump again but has stopped short of an endorsement.

Take a look at their record and what the two have said so far about their hopes and plans for both K-12 and higher education.

The Department of Education

Trump's Agenda47 campaign has proposed eliminating the U.S. Department of Education which, according to the DOE website, "establishes policy for, administers and coordinates most federal assistance to education." Trump, in a campaign video, has said he wants states, not the federal government, to have control over schools.

Throughout Trump's presidency, he proposed billions in cuts to the Department of Education's budget.

Harris' campaign as well as the Biden-Harris administration have criticized Trump for threatening to dismantle the department while expressing support for federal funding and policy initiatives from the agency.

Harris has been criticized for not putting forth many official policy positions, including education, since her campaign began roughly a month ago. Amid scrutiny, her campaign released an economic agenda with expectations of future policy rollouts to come in the final days on the campaign trail.

School choice

Trump has backed universal school choice programs, which allow a student's allotment of public education funds to be transferred to nonpublic schooling options -- including private and religious schools or homeschooling. Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act during his presidency, which his campaign states allowed parents to use up to $10,000 from a 529 education savings account to cover K-12 tuition costs at a school of their choice.

The Democratic 2025 platform opposes the use of private-school vouchers and tuition tax credits, opportunity scholarships, "and other schemes that divert taxpayer-funded resources away from public education."

Funding for low-income students and families

The Biden-Harris administration secured billions of dollars to increase federal funding for schools that largely serve low-income families, directing billions toward resources and funding for low-income schools but also increased funding to special education services, career and technical education and English-language learning programs.

In a 2019 bill, then-Sen. Harris proposed establishing "Family Friendly School" policies at 500 elementary schools to align the school day with the workday in support of working families.

Harris has spoken out in favor of 21st Century Community Learning Centers -- which host programs predominantly for students who are in high-poverty and low-performing schools and the Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs which provides yearslong grants for services at high-poverty middle and high schools.

Trump proposed cuts to both programs in annual budget proposals under his administration.

Both the Biden-Harris and Trump-Pence administrations have seen increases to Head Start, a program that provides federally subsidized preschool for low-income children.

The Biden-Harris administration increased funding for Head Start by roughly $2 billion since the start of their term. Trump's administration saw a roughly $1.3 billion increase during his term.

Trump also sought to "expand K-12 educational options for disadvantaged children impacted by the pandemic," and signed an Executive Order to provide emergency K-12 scholarships using Federal Community Service Block Grants so students could access in-person learning opportunities in December 2020.

K-12 curriculum

Trump's campaign has detailed a plan centering on prayer in public schools, an expansion of parental rights in education, patriotism as a centerpiece of education and the "American Way of Life."

This includes a dismantling of so-called "woke" or diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in education and reinstating his administration's 1776 Commission which focuses education on the history and "values" of the founding of the United States of America. However, Trump has called for cutting federal funding for schools or programs that feature "critical race theory, gender ideology or other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content onto our children."

Trump plans to "promote positive education about the nuclear family, the roles of mothers and fathers, and celebrating rather than erasing the things that make men and women different and unique."

Harris has spoken out against efforts to ban books and restrict classroom content regarding race.

She called controversial Black history guidelines in Florida in 2023 "revisionist history" for requiring middle schoolers to learn "how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit."

Teacher pay

When Harris first ran for president in 2019, she proposed closing "the teacher pay gap" between teachers and other professions that require a college degree -- which Harris said would be a $13,500 salary bump for teachers as schools nationwide continue to report staffing shortages and poor funding.

According to the National Education Association (NEA), the national average for starting teacher salaries is $44,530 and the national average teacher salary is $69,544. The Department of Education also found that 94% of teachers paid out of pocket for school supplies for their classrooms in a 2018 study.

Trump's Agenda47 states that he will support teacher merit pay, which ties a teacher's compensation to student performance. Some studies have shown that merit pay programs could improve student outcomes, while some argue there is not enough evidence, and that there are various factors that impact student performance -- including funding and resource inequity.

Teacher tenure and hiring

Trump's Agenda47 states he plans to put an end to teacher tenure laws. These laws are described by the United Federation of Teachers as state laws that prevent a school district from dismissing a tenured teacher without due process. Most states have tenure laws in place, however at least 10 states have zero or limited tenure laws, according to the NEA.

In a campaign video, Trump states he wants to abolish these policies "to remove bad teachers."

Trump also plans to create a credentialing body to certify teachers who "embrace patriotic values and support the American Way of Life" and encourage schools to allow trained teachers to carry concealed weapons at school.

The Biden-Harris administration has touted the tens of billions of dollars it has invested in staffing through the American Rescue Plan, which filled gaps in employment stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Biden-Harris administration's American Rescue Plan and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act funded the hiring and training of more counselors, social workers and other staff in schools nationwide amid what has been called a mental health crisis.

Student loan forgiveness and free higher education

Harris has long been a proponent of free two-year college tuition for most students and for free four-year college and trade school tuition for students from lower- and middle-income families.

The Biden administration has touted student loan forgiveness as a central part of its education platform -- in July, the Department of Education laid out options for roughly 25 million borrowers to have some, or all, of their debt canceled.

This most recent proposal came after Biden and Harris' initial effort to cancel some or all debt for 43 million people was overturned by the Supreme Court. Despite the roadblock, the administration says it has forgiven more than $144 billion for millions of Americans through other programs.

More than 940,000 of these are public servants who have their federal student loans forgiven through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program -- up from the 7,000 recipients enrolled in the program before the Biden-Harris administration took office.

During Trump's time in office, he proposed eliminating the PSLF and making cuts to the Pell Grant program.

Trump's agenda for 2025 focuses on plans to create a new, free university called the "American Academy" and fund it by "taxing, fining and suing" private universities.

"Its mission will be to make a truly world-class education available to every American, free of charge, and do it without adding a single dime to the federal debt," said Trump. "This institution will gather an entire universe of the highest quality educational content, covering the full spectrum of human knowledge and skills, and make that material available to every American citizen online for free."

Recent Title IX changes

The Biden-Harris administration recently issued new rules that say Title IX protects students from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and expanded protections from sex-based harassment to include "sexual violence and unwelcome sex-based conduct that creates a hostile environment by limiting or denying a person's ability to participate in or benefit from a school's education program or activity."

The regulations update also enhances protections for students, employees and applicants against discrimination "based on pregnancy, childbirth, termination of pregnancy, lactation, related medical conditions, or recovery from these conditions." However, parts of it have been blocked from enforcement by conservative-led lawsuits.

Trump has said he would overturn the new regulations connected to what he has called "gender insanity."

Historically Black Colleges and Universities

Both Trump and Harris have invested in HBCUs, which have long been underfunded by the federal government, throughout the years.

During Trump's time in office, he signed into law the bipartisan FUTURE Act to permanently send $255 million in annual funding for HBCUs, forgave $322 million in disaster loans to four HBCUs in 2018, and signed legislation that included more than $100 million for scholarships, research and centers of excellence at HBCU land-grant institutions.

Harris proposed increased funding for HBCUs in her first presidential run -- particularly focusing on training for Black educators. The Biden-Harris administration sent more than $16 billion in funding and investments to these schools from 2021 to 2024.

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At Alumni Weekend, the panel discussion “Looking to the Future: The Role of Higher Education in Society,” moderated by Arne Duncan, LAB’82, brought together dean of the College Melina Hale, PhD’98; dean of the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering Nadya Mason; dean of the Humanities Division Deborah L. Nelson. (All photography by John Zich)

Three UChicago deans share their views about what lies ahead—and what matters most.

One of the biggest draws during Alumni Weekend in May was “Looking to the Future: The Role of Higher Education in Society.”

Before a packed crowd at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures’ Breasted Hall, three University of Chicago deans addressed the topic at hand: Melina Hale , PhD’98, dean of the College and William Rainey Harper Professor in Organismal Biology and Anatomy; Nadya Mason , dean of the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and the Robert J. Zimmer Professor of Molecular Engineering; and Deborah L. Nelson , dean of the Division of the Humanities and the Helen B. and Frank L. Sulzberger Professor of English.

Moderating was Arne Duncan , LAB’82, distinguished senior fellow and special advisor to the dean at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, former US secretary of education, and former chief executive of Chicago Public Schools. Their discussion has been edited and condensed.

Arne Duncan: As we know, there’s a backlash against higher education. Over the next five, 10, 15 years, how do this university and others continue to prove their value and demonstrate how important it is to continue to create these opportunities for young people?

Nadya Mason: It’s incredibly important for universities to think deeply about problems that maybe other people aren’t thinking about—this is what UChicago is known for—but also to lead in solving global problems that are challenges to humanity and society as a whole, problems like climate change, energy efficiency, global hunger. I don’t see how universities can educate future generations without addressing these existential issues. UChicago did a great job of this by starting an engineering school.

This is not the only way to move forward. But it is important to continuously ask ourselves, “How are we having impact? How do we want to have impact?” Then make a plan.

Deborah L. Nelson: I’ve thought a lot about this because I teach postwar US culture, after 1945. In 1940, 4 percent of Americans went to college. After World War II, there was a massive increase because of the GI Bill. Then the Cold War produced a massive investment in higher education. Higher education was affordable.

Since the 1980s we have stopped investing in higher education, even though the United States has the greatest system the world has ever known. People from around the world come here. I just saw a list of the top universities in the world. Among the top 12, two of them were Oxford and Cambridge—and the rest were in the United States. We will be tremendously impoverished if we give up on that jewel of our own country.

The elite universities have the highest price tags, the flashiest credentials, but that is only part of higher ed in the United States. Eighty percent of US citizens who go to college go to a public university. And to undermine the good work of this big system educating people is—it’s really heartbreaking to me. I think it requires all of you and your communities to be a bulwark against the nonsense about higher ed. What is it for? Why are we doing it? Why do you want your children to have a college education? There are things beyond your child getting a job. I’m not indifferent to that; no one is indifferent to that. But there is a sort of basic foundation of citizenry that requires some advanced knowledge. We live in a very complex world, and you are going to have a hard time navigating that world without some fluency across disciplines and basic scientific, mathematic, humanistic, and social scientific knowledge. You use it every day, whether you recognize it or not.

Melina Hale: Yes, and one of the things we need to keep doing is what we’re doing now with the College’s Core curriculum, leaning into teaching students to argue rigorously, think deeply, look at primary sources of information, and evaluate these sources for themselves. We are completely committed to doing what we’re doing now, and the importance of that.

There are a lot of ways that we can engage more students and engage more broadly with our community, and we absolutely need to do more of that. I think a lot about Chicago as our home and our community, and we send lots of students out into that community. A sustainability club, for instance, will go and actually be advisers to local businesses about how they can improve sustainability.

Duncan: What role should UChicago play on the South Side and in the city of Chicago?

Hale: Speaking from the College viewpoint, we’re educators and we want students to succeed at K through 12 and go to college, whether they come to UChicago or not. A lot of us do outreach in the schools around us, which are incredibly underresourced. During the pandemic, high school seniors were having a hard time applying for college. So our admissions office started hosting Zooms and sending people out to talk to students. They’ve impacted over 20,000 students in the local community through a program called UChicago Promise. They also help train high school counselors to advise students on their applications and strategy. We have made a difference for these kids and these schools, but there are so many more ways we could help.

Mason: Within the sciences and engineering, we have community college programs, and we do outreach to local students. But one of the most important things we do for the community is to serve as a bridge to entrepreneurial activity.

I was told that some years ago this would have been anathema to the UChicago community. But there’s growing recognition of the importance of start-ups. How do you build the local economy unless you create jobs in the local economy? How do you create jobs in the local economy unless people create businesses or unless you train people in ways that they can contribute or build things? So we’ve partnered with the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation to train students in starting companies.

We want students to do fundamental research. But when they make discoveries that can have impact, they need to bring that out into the world. You may not see the impact this year or in five years. But in 10, 20 years, you’ll see this vision transform. It will create businesses that will impact the local economy significantly.

Nelson: Starting next year, the Division of the Humanities will be called the Division of Arts and Humanities. The arts faculty are already in the Humanities Division, so it makes sense to shine a light on that.

We have Arts + Public Life, a beautiful strip of buildings that houses a theater, art-making facilities, and a music pavilion on Garfield Boulevard, just past Washington Park. One of the programs brings local people in to perfect their art and then helps them start an online business. The arts fellows are not just focused on self-expression but also on learning basic business practices.

Washington Park has been depopulated down to 10,000 people. There’s so much empty real estate there, but that will soon change. UChicago Medicine is setting up a training center and a lab right where we have this beautiful arts block, as well as partnering with the City Colleges. There’s going to be an influx of people, right where we have this beautiful performance area. That’s remarkable.

Duncan: It’s a difficult time to be a university administrator. There are protests going on as we talk today. What’s it been like to not just live through this but to lead?

Hale: I can speak to the College. I work with all of our undergraduates, and I’ve had a lot of conversations with students, with small groups, and with parents: answering their questions and being open and transparent and up front about our principles, explaining why we’re doing what we’re doing.

We want our students to be able to use their voices and stand up for what they believe in. Free expression is so important for protecting marginalized people, but there are protests, and then there are disruptive protests—a very different thing.

It’s been important to stand back and see this as a learning experience for our undergraduates. But it’s been so emotional. I heard from students that it separated friends. Over the winter, I think that leaning into dialogue improved—trying to understand where each other was coming from and to talk about it. But it’s been a tough year.

Nelson: The thing that’s been on my mind a lot is, free speech is not free. It’s very costly. That doesn’t mean it’s not valuable. But sometimes we have a bit of happy talk about free speech: “Oh, free speech, it’s free, yay, we all get to say what we think.”

That’s true, but it makes demands. In a free speech environment, you have to be in a headspace of curiosity. That is hard to do when you’re in a lot of pain, when everybody’s in a lot of pain. To take a deep breath and listen—that has been the challenge, and it has been really hard. There’s been a lot of discussion and dispute among the faculty as well. People feel very, very strongly and make impassioned, reasoned arguments. But I do feel like it’s hard to listen.

But those are the capacities of free speech that you have to cultivate. The University has the advantage of norms of deliberation, norms of reason and evidence that are part of the classroom, part of the scholarly community. They’re tested during difficult times, but they are a bulwark against chaos. Having those norms deeply held, believed in, and practiced has been the foundation that has gotten us through some very tense and difficult moments. The Kalven Report and its declaration of institutional neutrality has been incredibly important. The institution cannot have a position, because it makes it impossible for a multiplicity of thinking to flourish.

Mason: It’s definitely been a challenging time. Of course UChicago is known for freedom of expression, but this year it’s been put in the forefront. What does free speech mean? Why does it matter? You might think, “Engineers, why would they need free speech? They’re just working on making stuff.” But when we talk about science, that includes climate change and vaccines. And at the University of Chicago we want our students to go out and be leaders and be able to engage in conversations about things that matter to people. If someone says, “Vaccines are not important” or “I don’t believe in climate change,” I want our students to be able to answer with reason, with scientific proof, with evidence. That’s what will make them leaders in the way that we want them to be, and it starts here.

Hale: A few weeks ago, I had an interesting conversation with a junior faculty member, relatively new to the University. He said, in the context of the protests and the encampment and everyone being angry at each other, “The University will never be the same again.”

But actually, go back and look at the ’60s, at the early ’70s, when I was a graduate student in the ’90s, the 2000s. And we all grow and learn and continue as a University, because the Kalven Report and our principles keep us on track.

Audience member: What’s the future of the Core curriculum, the magnet that brought me here?

Hale: Well, we love the Core. And as you know, when the Core first started in the 1930s, it was an earthquake in higher education. It was new, it was different. It was not great books. It was discussion and digging in and having this consistent education across our students.

The Core is as important today as it was a decade ago, 20 years ago, and back to the ’30s. It is not a static thing. It continues to evolve and change with the times, and sometimes swerves, and sometimes moves back. It’s a dynamic conversation among our faculty. In the last year or so, we started what are called Core Conversations for the first time, where faculty are getting together quarterly to talk about hard things about the Core. So we’re even having the Core conversation ourselves, in order to keep the Core curriculum lively and strong. The Core will not go away. I think it will be even more important for our students as we move forward.

Nelson: I’ve taught in the Core for many years. With a very diverse student body from around the world and around the country, the Core produces common touch points of knowledge and reference that are really absent among students. They haven’t read the same things. They don’t know the same things. We have micropublics. So to give them a set of things they all know and can discuss is an absolutely valuable thing for College students today—I would say absolutely more so than 50 years ago, when there was a more consistent curriculum across high schools and when the student body was more homogenous and knew more of the same things.

Audience member: One of the panelists mentioned certain skills being essential for visibility in the modern world. Is the traditional higher education model the best way to achieve that?

Mason: We’re not trying to create people who can just get a specific job. We’re trying to produce leaders and innovators who will bring us into the future. And to innovate, you have to understand a lot of things. You have to understand the past, you have to understand your society, you have to understand the pull of psychology, you have to understand a little math and a lot of science. Everything is connected together, and it’s things like the Core, combining deep knowledge and breadth of knowledge, that allow people to lead effectively into the future. That’s what we want for our students.

Nelson: We don’t have a higher education system in this country. We have a higher education market. And there should absolutely be massive experimentation around forms of higher ed. For a large number of students, it’s not reasonable to leave the workforce. They don’t have the money to leave the workforce for four years of concentrated study. But it should be possible for them to get a degree in a reasonable amount of time. There can be many, many more forms of delivery that would allow more students a more successful path to a college degree.

I did my graduate teaching at Queens College in New York. And you know, my students were working 40 hours a week in a job. I can torture the students here with assigned reading, and I do, because that’s their job—to read what I’ve told them to read. But at Queens I had to moderate the amount of work because my students had full-time jobs, and many were parents. You have to have many, many, many ways of educating people in a pluralistic society. This is one way of educating people. It’s a very valuable way. But it by no means should determine all the ways people can get the benefit of a college education.

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Leadership: Higher Education (MA)

Study format, program length.

• 33 Credit Hours

Application Deadlines

Domestic students.

Summer 2024 Application Due | Classes Start May 6, 2024

International Students

Summer 2024 Completed File Due | Classes Start May 6, 2024

The  higher education leadership curriculum  encourages students to draw and build upon knowledge and experiences related to their professional work while also requiring students to develop strong research skills and a familiarity with evidence-based decision-making. While grounded in topics related to Higher Education systems in the United States, this emphasis also provides opportunities to explore the internationalization and globalization of higher education.

Concordia University Chicago's master of arts in leadership studies program is based on the conviction that leaders must learn to lead change so that services and deliverables are effectively, ethically and efficiently delivered to an increasingly diverse population in the context of a changing economy and rapidly developing technologies. The graduate program in leadership studies focuses on practitioner needs by linking theory to the best practices of leadership.

The leadership skills that students attain while pursuing a master’s in leadership are transferrable across all types of organizations—private, for profit, nonprofit and public. The Concordia-Chicago leadership curriculum was developed to prepare students to lead organizational change and innovation, while managing the challenges of continuous change and global competition.

Students who pursue their master’s in leadership may be working as or want to pursue careers as information officers, strategic planners, project managers, sales directors, military officers, hospital administrators and religious leaders. The Concordia-Chicago master of arts in leadership studies is designed for people with all types of backgrounds and interests, whether they work or want to work in the government, nonprofit, for-profit, health care, higher education, military, and human services at the local, regional, national or global level.

Core Qualities of a Leader

While salaries vary based on industry, experience and geographic location, the following qualities are essential leadership skills that are relevant and necessary for all organizations. The MA in leadership at Concordia University Chicago is the program where you can acquire or hone your leadership and managerial skills, with special emphasis on communication, problem-solving and decision-making.

Communication skills.  Top executives must be able to communicate clearly and persuasively. They must effectively discuss issues and negotiate with others, direct subordinates, and explain their policies and decisions to those within and outside the organization.

Decision-making skills.  Top executives need decision-making skills when setting policies and managing an organization. They must assess different options and choose the best course of action, often daily.

Leadership skills.  Top executives must be able to lead a successful organization by coordinating policies, people, and resources.

Management skills.  Top executives must organize and direct the operations of an organization. For example, they must manage business plans, employees and budgets.

Problem-solving skills.  Top executives need problem-solving skills after identifying issues within an organization. They must be able to recognize shortcomings and effectively carry out solutions.

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor,  Occupational Outlook Handbook , 2012-13 Edition, Top Executive .

Why Pursue a Master's in Leadership?

Are you a big-picture or a detail-oriented person? The organizational landscape is one that is global, change-oriented, and fast-paced. Leaders need to be forward thinkers, innovators, sensitive, flexible, and able to adapt to the demands and expectations of stakeholders.

While an MBA will prepare you to manage, an MA in leadership will prepare you to lead. Organizations need leaders who understand that the top-down type of leadership must give way to an organic and fluid method of leading others. You will emerge with a confidence of knowing you can lead with strategic foresight.

The program’s central core focuses on leadership theory and offers specializations in knowledge management, health services, servant leadership, higher education leadership and organizational leadership. Concordia University Chicago leadership students become part of a global learning community of individuals, and graduate with the essential leadership toolkit containing communication, problem-solving, critical thinking, research and analysis, and people skills.

Program Information

View curriculum.

This curriculum encourages students to draw upon and build on knowledge and experiences related to their professional work, while also requiring students to develop strong research skills and a familiarity with evidence-based decision-making. While grounded in topics related to Higher Education systems in the United States, this emphasis also provides opportunities to explore the internationalization and globalization of higher education.

Core Courses

Leadership and excellence.

Overview of leadership theories and leadership concepts, systems and organizational perspectives, organizational performance and effectiveness, and learning organization concepts and strategies.

Strategic Leadership and Planning

The course is designed to prepare students with diverse perspectives, frameworks, skills, and tools for executing effective strategy within mission driven organizations. Topics include effective mission driven organizations, role of strategic leadership, tools for developing and assessing strategic engagement, stakeholder concerns, and opportunities for leading change initiatives and strategic planning.

Ethical and Social Leadership

Examine and explore ethical dilemmas of leadership, the context and foundations of moral choice, moral implications of decisions, and ramifications of leader choices. Ethical challenges and decision making criteria, stewardship and social responsibility in an age of increased organizational accountability and transparency.

Introduction to Research

This course examines foundation level principles and processes of social and behavioral research as applied across disciplines. This course is designed to enable students to acquire both a basic understanding and skills in general research methods. Specifically, the course prepares students to be critical consumers of research and to be an active participant in the generation and implementation of research knowledge. 

Specialization Courses

Law and higher education.

This course addresses the legal environment of post-secondary institutions and specific issues that affect higher education. In addition to faculty and administrative structuring, curriculum development, and institutional financing, a university’s policy is affected by legal concerns, including constitutional privileges, ethics, and regulations that may be relevant in regards to state and local municipalities. Students enrolled in this course will participate in research and weekly discussions evaluating the significance and importance of the limitations and allowances of government-defined operating and monetary restrictions on academic institutions.

Institutional Advancement and Development in Higher Education

This course examines the role of institutional advancement in supporting the mission and vision of the higher education institution through the development of external funds, relationships with alumni and other external constituencies and communications support and public visibility.

Historical and Societal Issues in Higher Education

This course addresses the major social issues affected by higher education, specific issues and trends, dominant themes of historical and institutional impact. Students enrolled in this course will acquire an improved understanding of previous events of the significance of higher education, including how it has developed and increased in importance to society.

Fiscal and Social Responsibility in Higher Education

This course addresses the major financial and economic issues experienced within higher education including fiscal awareness, social responsibility and stewardship. Learners will be able to understand the primary concerns involved with budgeting, ethics and management within the higher education landscape and able to apply theories and principles to maintain a functioning and sustainable institution. Learners will be exposed to the economic, political and organizational cultural factors which affect the allocation of monetary resources within the higher education organization.

Governance and Leadership in Higher Education

This course includes the theoretical perspectives on higher education organizations as well as the organizational structure, management, and leadership of colleges and universities and governance systems. Learners enrolled in this course will become familiar with the purpose of institutional governance, its various functions, administrative models and the factors utilized to define its strategies.

Knowledge Management for Higher Education Leadership

Application of knowledge management principles to a university environment, including how to apply information regarding learners, faculty, staff, state and national legislature, and competing institutions to improve the academic quality and educational conditions of the organization. The process of acquiring knowledge from a learning institution and developing a system to assist with future strategies that correspond with the current requirements, industry preferences and objectives of an institution.

Capstone Experience

Leadership capstone.

This course serves a culminating experience in which students are expected to apply knowledge and insights gained from their graduate course experience. The course is designed to provide a final experience in which students demonstrate mastery of content and allow an opportunity for closure and connection between courses. The purpose of this capstone course is to facilitate the integration and synthesis of content through critical thinking; it is also a turning point for the student from education to professional practice.

*International Student Requirement

Seminar in higher education (edu 6015).

In addition to the base program curriculum, international students attending face-to-face classes on the CUC campus are required to take the Seminar in Higher Education, a 3-credit course. This requirement will not apply to international DBA students studying exclusively online.

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College of Education

Master’s programs.

Our college is committed to Chicago's communities, students, and their families to make real change and develop new knowledge around education.

Our Master of Education (M.Ed.) programs are for people who are or want to become teachers, researchers, and educational leaders. Our master's students work with our faculty, graduate students, and community partners to develop research and practical experience in Chicago's schools and community-based organizations.

Our master's programs Heading link Copy link

• MEd Early Childhood Education Earn a professional teaching license and endorsements to work with young children (0-8) and their families
• MEd Educational Policy Studies Choose from different tracks such as institutional leadership and social justice
• MEd Educational Studies For students looking for broad-based or uniquely customized studies in education
• MEd Language, Literacies & Learning For licensed teachers (reading/ ESL endorsements) & students interested in literacy & language learning
• MEd MESA Measurement, Evaluation, Statistics & Assessment: Advanced studies in research methodology in social sciences
• MEd MESA Online Online version of Measurement, Evaluation, Statistics & Assessment
• MEd Science Education Strand A: pursue a license to teach science; Strand B: advanced studies for science educators in urban settings
• MEd Special Education Earn a license to teach, LBS I & II endorsements, and/or study advanced topics in special ed
• MEd Urban Higher Education Learn how to lead, research, or start a career in urban higher education institutions
• MEd Youth Development Learn how to build and evaluate high-quality educational environments for urban youth (8-22) outside the classroom
• MS App. Behavior Analysis, Disability & Diversity This MS degree prepares individuals to become Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBA) with the skills to work effectively with marginalized populations.

Why choose UIC for your master's degree? Heading link Copy link

Faculty leadership and support.

The strength of our graduate programs comes from our faculty’s talents and commitment to students. At least 70% of our master’s courses are taught by faculty each year. Our faculty and graduate student networks reach every neighborhood of Chicago, providing our students with expansive options for pursuing community-engaged work and scholarship.

Flexible course schedule for busy students

Our master’s programs are designed for working students. All the master’s degrees can be completed part-time , the only exception being the accelerated 12-month program for the Master’s in Science Education (Strand A). All master’s courses are held in the evenings, Monday through Thursday.

Funding and awards: fellowships, grants, waivers, and more

Once you are admitted, you can apply for scholarships, grants, and graduate assistantships to cover all or part of your tuition. Funding options will depend on which program you enroll in, as well as your academic and/or professional qualifications.

The UIC Graduate College is a great source of information to start learning about the many funding and award opportunities for UIC graduate students. UIC graduate tuition is posted here .

Master's Programs Frequently Asked Questions Heading link Copy link

Is the gre required to apply.

No. The GRE is not required for our master’s programs.

Do I need a bachelor's in education to apply?

No, we accept many master’s students who are new to the field of education and are looking for a career change. However, certain MEd programs require a teaching license in order for you to be eligible to earn endorsements. See our  licensure, endorsements & credentials  page for more information.

Can I attend part-time?

Yes. The majority of our master’s students take courses part-time. Part-time students typically take 1 or 2 courses per semester.

Can I be employed full-time while completing my degree?

Yes. The majority of our students work full-time. Since classes meet in the evenings during the week, it is possible to work full-time while pursing the degree.

How long will it take to graduate?

Part-time master’s students typically take 2-3 years to earn the MEd. Full-time students can finish in 1-2 years.

When do courses meet?

Our synchronous classes (online, hybrid, or in-person) meet once per week in the evenings (5 p.m.–8 p.m.), Monday through Thursday. We do not offer classes on the weekends.

Some of our instructors offer online courses that are asynchronous with no set weekly meeting time, but master’s students should plan for most courses (online and in-person) meeting synchronously.

Do you offer online degrees or online courses?

The  MEd in Measurement, Evaluation, Statistics, and Assessment (MESA) Online  is our only fully online master’s program (there is also an  on-campus version ).

Visit our Courses  page to see current course schedules and formats.

What is the tuition?

Tuition rates can be found on the UIC  Graduate Tuition & Fees page . Tuition can vary depending on the year courses are taken, the number of courses taken simultaneously, and the type of courses taken.

Is financial aid available?

Yes. Some opportunities will depend on the applicant’s qualifications and their chosen master’s program.

UIC offers graduate student assistantships, which come with a tuition discount, as well as scholarships for grad students. For some opportunities, you can apply at the same time as you apply to UIC, but many opportunities only accept applications from admitted and enrolled UIC students.

The UIC Graduate College is a  great source of information  to start learning about the funding and award opportunities for UIC graduate students. To learn more about scholarships and aid within the College of Education, visit our  Tuition & Aid page .

Do you offer alternative licensure programs?

The  Early Childhood Education (ECE) alternative licensure  program is a special pilot program for employees of Chicago community agencies who already have professional early childhood education experience. It is not accepting applications from the general public.

Our traditional ECE licensure program takes a similar amount of time to complete  (1-2 years full-time) as an alt licensure program, and is open to people with no prior academic or professional background in education.

Alternative licensure programs allow you to obtain a teaching license without pursuing a degree. In Illinois, they are generally a full-time commitment and take about two years to complete, and with the exception of our ECE alternative program, they are only offered at private universities. These programs are popular with people looking to switch careers with no prior experience in education, people who are looking to save money by not paying for a full master’s degree program, and/or people who want to transition to teaching relatively quickly.

However, all of UIC’s regular  licensure programs  at the master’s level can be completed part-time in 2-3 years, with accommodations for student-teaching that allow students to keep their jobs, are open to students with no prior background in education, and at a cost that is much lower than the alternative licensure programs at private universities.

What is the application deadline for master's programs?

Deadlines vary by MEd program. Please check the UIC Graduate Admissions website for all official master’s deadlines, including international deadlines. Once you decide which master’s program is right for you, check the deadline(s) for that program.

Most of our master’s programs have two or three deadlines over the year depending on which semester you want to start, with a few notable exceptions:

• MEd Early Childhood Education  and  MEd Youth Development  operate on a cohort model and only have one deadline (March 15) to begin in the fall semester
• The one-year accelerated version of  MEd Science Education  (leads to license to teach high school science) only accepts applications on February 15 to begin in the summer

Can I transfer credit hours towards my master's degree?

You may transfer a limited number of credits as long as they are within the guidelines of the UIC Graduate College. Read the  full list of guidelines here . Here are some important highlights:

For master’s programs of 47 or fewer semester hours [which is every College of Education M.Ed. program],  no more than 25% of the total hours required for the degree may be transferred  from another institution or other UIC college.

Consideration is given to the transfer of credit in four categories:

• Graduate work from another institution for which a degree was not, or will not, be awarded.
• Graduate work completed in the senior year, or in another college, at UIC.
• Graduate work completed as a non-degree student at UIC.
• Graduate work completed while in a Graduate College degree program, but not used for any earned degree. This includes extra work taken, for example, while in a master’s program, but that is to be used for the doctoral degree.

Can I start taking courses in my intended program before I am accepted?

Yes. For certain programs, you can take up to 12 credit hours as a non-degree seeking student at UIC that could potentially transfer to your intended master’s program.  Please note that for this option you will have to apply for UIC’s  graduate non-degree studies option  in order to receive admission, and you will not be eligible for scholarships and financial aid until you are accepted into a degree program.

What endorsements can I earn with a master's degree?

See the  licensure, endorsements, and credentials page  for a comprehensive list of endorsement offerings by program.

For certain endorsements such as ESL, Bilingual, LBS I & II (Special Education), Early Childhood Special Education, licensed teachers can enroll as non-degree students through  UIC Extended Campus  to complete endorsement coursework only.

How do I choose which master's program at the College of Education is best for me?

Please read our  Choosing a Master’s Program  page. You will find answers about the differences between programs such Educational Studies/Educational Policy Studies and Youth Development/Urban Higher Education. Your choice will depend on you career goals and/or your research interests.

If you are applying to a master’s program to get a teaching license, your options are:

• Early Childhood Ed (teaching children 0-8 years)
• Special Ed (teaching K-12)
• Science Ed (teaching high school science)

These three programs also accept licensed teachers looking to add endorsements or specialize.

Educational Studies  and  Language, Literacy & Learning  also offer pathways to earn endorsements such as the Bilingual/ESL, but they do not provide a path to licensure.

Who do I contact if I am having difficulty completing my application?

If you have questions or are having difficulties submitting your application, contact Ana Valenta, Master’s Programs Advisor, at  [email protected] .

When are the info sessions for the master's programs?

General info sessions happen in Fall & Spring semesters. Info session dates are posted on our Events  page.

Questions about applying? Contact: Heading link Copy link

Ana valenta.

Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Ill. The state is planning to replace the prison because of its crumbling infrastructure. However, Stateville has some of the most robust educational programming of any prison in the state.

Manuel Martinez/WBEZ

What will Stateville shutdown mean for higher education programs behind bars?

A federal judge ordered the illinois prison closed by the end of september, giving a hard deadline to the state’s plan to shutter the crumbling facility..

The looming closure of Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet has some of the men locked up inside worried about what it will mean for their ongoing education, even as they are relieved to leave the dangerous, aging prison.

Earlier this month a federal judge, citing health and security concerns , ordered Illinois prison officials to transfer the majority of incarcerated individuals out of Stateville by September 30. The maximum security prison currently houses around 420 men.

The court ruling gives a hard deadline to the state’s decision to shutter the 100-year-old facility. In March, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced the state’s plan to close and rebuild Stateville, along with Logan Correctional Center, a women’s prison.

Incarcerated people have described the horrible conditions at both facilities, citing polluted water, mold, and failing infrastructure. Some have questioned whether the conditions at Stateville also contributed to the early death of Michael Broadway, a 51-year-old who recently graduated from Northwestern University, in June.

Despite its poor physical conditions, Stateville has some of the most robust programming of any prison in the state due to its proximity to Chicago. The prison currently has five colleges operating there, while many other facilities have no higher education at all.

More than a quarter of the current population at Stateville is enrolled in higher education, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections. Northwestern, DePaul and Northeastern Illinois are among the universities with programs at Stateville.

Jennifer Lackey, founding director of the Northwestern Prison Education Program, said that some students had previously chosen to transfer to Stateville from lower-security facilities in order to take advantage of the educational opportunities there.

Educators and students have been left wondering what the impending closure will mean for the thriving intellectual community that has been built at Stateville over the last several years, with many incarcerated college graduates continuing to remain engaged with their academic institutions as teaching assistants and fellows.

Students from the Northwestern Prison Education Program get their bachelor’s degrees from inside Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Illinois in November, 2023.

Northwestern University

The closure of a prison can sometimes mean that students are scattered all over the state in the middle of their education, but representatives of the college programs at Stateville said they have submitted lists of current students and alumni to the department in hopes that they will be able to transfer with them to new facilities.

But educators expressed concern about the feasibility of continuing programs at more distant locations due to travel constraints for both faculty and campus-based students participating in programs. After Stateville, the next closest men’s prison to Chicago is Sheridan, which is more than an hour away from downtown.

Northwestern, which celebrated the graduation of its first 16 incarcerated graduates in November, had been preparing to move around 100 students and alumni to Sheridan since the end of last year, Lackey said, before Gov. Pritzker announced plans to close Stateville. Northwestern also operates a bachelor’s program for women at Logan.

“It’s an unqualified positive experience for us to move from Stateville to Sheridan,” she said.

Other colleges also eyed Sheridan for a possible move, but Lackey said space constraints there would make it difficult for another program to operate during the rebuilding period, which the state projects as taking up to five years.

North Park Theological Seminary, which offers a master of arts in Christian ministry and restorative arts, will likely be moving to Illinois River Correctional Center, Professor Michelle Dodson said. They have submitted to the corrections department a list of 30 students and 15 alumni whom they would like to move with the program.

“Apart from the distance, Illinois River does seem like a really good fit for our program,” Dodson said.

“I feel like I’m in a washing machine and I have no idea when it stops where I’m going to end up.”

Jamal Bakr is a North Park graduate who has applied to continue as a teaching assistant at Illinois River. He is hopeful about the new facility but is still unsure if all of the alumni who want to go with the program will be allowed to do so. “There are obviously not many opportunities for professional degree holders on the inside, and my fear is that I, and my very accomplished peers, will be lost in the shuffle,” he wrote. “A lot is weighing on how this transfer deal works out.”

Arianna Salgado, executive director of Prison+Neighborhood Arts/Education Project , said her group fully supports the Stateville closure and would never advocate for a prison to remain open. “It’s not a safe space for anyone to be in,” she said.

But she also acknowledged the challenge that the nonprofit will face in offering the same kind of programming they have at Stateville if they move to Hill Correctional Center in Galesburg as currently planned.

Representatives of multiple schools said that they had explored the option of moving their programs to Dixon, a men’s medium-security facility 120 miles east of Chicago, but were told by prison officials that wouldn’t work.

Professor Christina Rivers said that DePaul had been looking at offering classes at Dixon for a while, even prior to the Stateville closure announcement, because little programming is available to the population there. “But what we’ve been told by the DOC is that Dixon is rife with lockdowns and that there’s a staff shortage, so it’s just not feasible,” she said.

Dixon and Sheridan are about as far away as DePaul would be able to offer programming. Anything further away would effectively “kill off” DePaul’s in-person programming, especially bringing students from their Chicago campus to the facilities, Rivers said.

While there is little disagreement about the need to address the conditions at Stateville, there has been a lively debate about what that should look like. Some advocates are critical of the decision to rebuild Stateville at all, especially given the $900 million budget outlined by Gov. Pritzker. Representatives of the correctional officer union have been particularly vocal in their desire to keep Stateville open.

“My concern...is that programs will not be readily accessible as we’re herded to other facilities.”

The opinions among the incarcerated population are mixed. Many want to get out of Stateville as quickly as possible due to the conditions, while others would like to remain there while a new facility is built.

Jamie Snow is one of the current North Park master’s students who might potentially be transferred to Illinois River. “From what I hear, it’s not a bad place compared to this one,” he wrote. “I feel like I’m in a washing machine and I have no idea when it stops where I’m going to end up.”

Others have questions about whether they will continue to have access to programs at their new facilities. At Stateville, the majority of the population is serving life or other extremely long sentences. “My concern moving forward is that programs will not be readily accessible as we’re herded to other facilities,” North Park graduate Benny Rios Donjuan wrote in an email. “The medium and minimum prisons prioritize programming for prisoners with shorter sentences.”

Beyond access to programming, one of the biggest concerns for the Stateville population is how far they might be from their families. “I’m currently 56 and my aging mom is 75. She can’t travel long distances to visit,” wrote Darrell Fair, a graduate of Northeastern Illinois University. “Many people here share that dilemma if forced to relocate.”

Rivers, the DePaul professor, and others like State Senator Rachel Ventura, D-Joliet, have advocated for temporarily moving students to the Joliet Inpatient Treatment Center, which is less than 10 miles from Stateville, during the rebuild. Opened in 2022 as a secure medical and mental health treatment center, the facility currently only houses 68 individuals despite a 168 bed capacity, according to the department. The facility has remained partly empty due to difficulties hiring staff that have the necessary educational credentials.

View from outside Stateville Correctional Center in 2020.

Both the treatment center and Stateville are in Ventura’s legislative district and she has been running an internship with several incarcerated men there since 2023 in partnership with DePaul.

Ventura told Open Campus in July that the treatment center’s pod structure could allow for both education and inpatient treatment in separate areas. But, she said, corrections officials told her they wanted to keep the inpatient treatment center for its intended purpose. “That would be great if you could hire for it,” she said. “But instead, you have a facility just sitting empty, and that’s really frustrating.”

Illinois Department of Corrections spokesperson Naomi Puzzello said that the treatment center serves a specialized population of patients who require the most intensive level of care for severe mental illness and those who need long-term nursing care.

During a public hearing in June , acting IDOC director Latoya Hughes said the proposed rebuild design plan for Stateville would include an estimated capacity of approximately 1500 , which is more than three times its current population.

Ventura said she hopes that the rebuild plans will include shutting down other aging state prisons and creating a campus focused on rehabilitation that will allow more robust education opportunities, community programming and mental health treatment, among other services, for incarcerated individuals.

Other states such as California have recently made similar decisions. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom has budgeted $380 million to transform the state’s oldest prison , San Quentin, into a rehabilitative center.

Charlotte West is a reporter covering the future of postsecondary education in prisons for Open Campus , a nonprofit newsroom focused on higher education. Sign up for her newsletter, College Inside .

PhD in Higher Education

Application deadline and contacts.

• For  application  related questions,  contact Graduate Enrollment Management .

Admission Requirements

• A Completed Application Form.  You may submit your application form  online . 
• Official Transcripts Applicants must submit official transcripts for all undergraduate and any graduate work. To be eligible for admission, your transcript must show an earned bachelor's degree or a bachelor’s degree in progress. Certified copies of transcripts are acceptable; faxed copies of transcripts are not considered official. If you attended Loyola University Chicago previously, you do not need to request transcripts; we have them on record.  Transcripts must show a GPA of at least a 3.0.   In exceptional cases, applicants whose undergraduate GPA is below 3.0 may be admitted. Each program area gives meaningful consideration to the applicant's graduate GPA, recommendations, professional experience and reasons for pursuing a graduate program, as well as to the diversity of the student body.
• Two Letters of Recommendation The letters should speak to the preparation for graduate school, commitment to social justice, and/or special circumstances and context for the candidate's educational journey/life journey. If you supply your recommender's email address as part of your completed online application form, then your recommendation letters will be submitted directly through the online application system. We ask that you submit only two letters, no more, no less. Recommenders may be academic or professional in nature. 
• A Personal Statement Your statement should be no more than 3 pages (double-spaced) and describe in detail your academic and research interests in postsecondary education and professional goals upon completion of a PhD. We also invite candidates to illuminate life experiences that have influenced their view of social justice in postsecondary education and led them to seek the opportunity to continue their education in a PhD program at Loyola specifically. Finally, we encourage you to review the recent works of the higher education faculty and be sure to describe how your interests coincide with two or more faculty with whom you would like to work with, including one of the faculty accepting students for the desired entry term.
• Interview Our admissions committee may request an interview. Interviews are done by invitation only. If invited to campus, an email will be sent with specific instructions prior to the interview.
• International Students Additional requirements for International applicants including English Language and Transcript & Credentials can be found on our  International Students page