The Pardee RAND Graduate School is a selective, multidisciplinary doctoral program with a focus on policy analysis and the ways it can shape our world.
We offer a full-time Ph.D. program in policy analysis — the first and largest of its kind in the country. And we’re backed by the brainpower and resources of the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis.
Each year, we welcome 25 exceptional students who come from diverse personal and academic backgrounds, with about a third of students coming from outside the U.S.
Choose Your Focus
Policy analysts need to be able to work with and understand colleagues across a range of areas of expertise. Pardee RAND offers three streams of policy engagement. In your application, you will choose the stream that best fits your interests:
- Research, Analysis, and Design: mastering analytic tools and methods for addressing complex policy problems
- Community-Partnered Policy and Action: partnering with and working in communities to effect real and sustainable change
- Technology Applications and Implications: creating technology-focused solutions to policy problems and understanding the societal implications of changing technology
Financial Benefits
Pardee RAND’s program enables students to cover their tuition while receiving a consistent stipend for living expenses each year and graduate debt-free.
Doctoral students receive:
- A full-tuition scholarship for the first year, partial scholarship in the second year, and reduced tuition thereafter
- A research fellowship earned by working on RAND projects of the student’s choice
- Generous health insurance and other benefits, including paid parental leave
- Support for conference attendance and travel
- Competitively awarded internal dissertation funding
Eligibility
Applicants must:
- Be available to participate in our full-time combined research-and-study program at RAND’s headquarters in Santa Monica, California
- Have completed a bachelor’s degree; an advanced degree and/or some work experience is desired
- Demonstrate strong quantitative skills; all majors and disciplines are welcome
