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Austin W. Marxe School of Public and International Affairs

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Spotlight on Marxe

Main Areas of Focus

Public Affairs and Administration
  • Health Care Policy
  • Nonprofit Administration
  • Policy Analysis and Evaluation
  • Public Management
  • Urban Development and Sustainability
International Affairs
  • International Nongovernmental Organizations
  • Trade Policy and Global Economic Governance
  • Western Hemisphere and Affairs
  • Special Concentration
Higher Education Administration

Why Marxe?

New York City is home to the United Nations; global businesses and foundations; prestigious institutions of higher learning; thousands of nonprofits; and more non-governmental and international non-governmental organizations than any other American city. 8000+ alumni can attest that there is no better place to study public affairs and administration, international affairs, or higher education administration; and no better place to experience an educational experience built on principles of rigor, access, and value than Baruch College‘s nationally recognized Austin W. Marxe School of Public and International Affairs.

Here’s a snapshot of Marxe School outcomes: as of Summer 2020, 92% of the School’s 2018-19 graduates are employed, nearly two-thirds of whom have salaries above $60,000/year.

Recent School Accomplishments

In 2016, the School received a historic $30M gift from entrepreneur and Baruch alumnus, Austin W. Marxe and changed its name from the School of Public and International Affairs to the Austin W. Marxe School of Public and International Affairs. The gift has enabled an increase in scholarships and study abroad programs; the establishment of faculty chairs; and the development of public policy programming (Marxe Talks, Global Insights, Marxe Issues) that convene with thought leaders for critical discussions on vital issues.

The School offers faculty ample resources and support for research which has produced groundbreaking reports in the areas of climate, race, public health, nonprofits, and more.

The School retains and runs five renowned research centers and institutions that produce critical reports, survey results, and data on a variety of topics relevant to public policy.

Undergraduate/Graduate Divide

Approximately 80% graduate (Master of Public Administration, Master of Education in Higher Education Administration, Master of International Affairs)/20% undergraduate (Bachelor of Science in Public Affairs)


Marxe U.S. News and World Report Rankings

Public Affairs – MPA
  • #1 in New York City among public institutions
  • #2 in New York State among public institutions
  • #3 in New York City, overall
  • #6 in New York State, overall
  • #34 among public institutions (tie)
  • #49 nationwide (tie), among 276 programs
Public Management and Leadership – Public Affairs Specialty
  • #2 in New York City among public institutions
  • #3 in New York State among public institutions
  • #4 in New York City, overall
  • #6 in New York State, overall
  • #25 among public institutions (tie)
  • #36 nationwide (tie)
Nonprofit Management – Public Affairs Specialty
  • #1 in New York City among public institutions
  • #2 in New York State among public institutions
  • #2 in New York City, overall
  • #4 in New York State, overall
  • #12 among public institutions
  • #17 nationwide
Urban Policy
  • #1 in New York City among public institutions
  • #1 in New York State among public institutions
  • #2 in New York City, overall (tie)
  • #3 in New York State, overall (tie)
  • #11 among public institutions (tie)
  • #18 nationwide (tie)

Groundbreaking Research and Noteworthy Awards

Public Health
Professor, Dahlia K. Remler; Professor, Sanders D. Korenman
“Including Health Insurance in Poverty Measurement: The Impact of Massachusetts Health Reform on Poverty”, The National Bureau of Economic Research

The professors developed and implemented what they believe is the first conceptually valid Health-inclusive Poverty Measure (HIPM)—a measure that includes health care or insurance in the poverty needs threshold and health insurance benefits in family resources—and discuss its limitations. Building on the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure, the professors constructed a pilot HIPM for the under-65 population under ACA-like health reform in Massachusetts. The pilot is intended to demonstrate the practicality, face validity, and value of a HIPM. Results suggest that public health insurance benefits and premium subsidies account for a substantial, one-third reduction in the poverty rate. Among low-income families who purchased individual insurance, premium subsidies reduced poverty by 9.4 percentage points.

Read the paper
Watch a video about it

Race
Professor, Robert C. Smith
Louis Wirth Best Article Award for “Black Mexicans, Conjunctural Ethnicity, and Operating Identities: Long-Term Ethnographic Analysis”, American Sociological Association

Professor Robert C. Smith was named winner of the American Sociological Association’s prestigious ‘Louis Wirth Best Article Award’ for his article, “Black Mexicans, Conjunctural Ethnicity, and Operating Identities: Long-Term Ethnographic Analysis”, which drew on more than 15 years of research to analyze what he refers to as “Black Mexicans” – observably “Mexican-looking” youth who identified as Black during adolescence, used this identity in the service of their own upward mobility, and then abandoned the identity in early adulthood.

Read more about the award
Read “Black Mexicans, Conjunctural Ethnicity, and Operating Identities: Long-Term Ethnographic Analysis”
Read Robert Smith’s Marxe faculty spotlight

Climate Change
Associate Professor, Bryan Jones
“Exposure of US population to extreme heat could quadruple by mid-century”, Nature Climate Change

Extreme heat events are likely to become more frequent in the coming decades due to climate change. Exposure to extreme heat depends not only on changing climate, but also on changes in the size and spatial distribution of the human population. This study provides a new projection of population exposure to extreme heat for the continental United States that takes into account these factors. Using projections from various regional climate models and a spatially explicit population projection consistent with the socioeconomic assumptions of that scenario, changes are projected in exposure into the latter half of the twenty-first century. The study finds that the US population exposure to extreme heat increases four-to-sixfold over observed levels in the late twentieth century with changes in population of equal importance to changes in climate in driving this outcome. Extreme heat kills more people in the US than any other weather-related event, and scientists generally expect the number of deadly heat waves to increase with climate change. The summarize, the study finds that overall exposure of Americans to future heat waves would be vastly underestimated if the role of population changes are ignored.

Read more

Participatory Budgeting
Professor, Don Waisanen; Professor, Dan Williams
Real Money, Real Power?: The Challenges with Participatory Budgeting in New York City

New York City has the largest council-sponsored Participatory Budgeting (PB, a process that empowers the least-advantaged members of the community by providing a way to propose budget allocations through voting) processes in North America. Real Money, Real Power?: The Challenges with Participatory Budgeting in New York City offers an investigative, behind-the-scenes look at New York City’s participatory budgeting (PB) process from the perspective of a city resident over time. To critically examine such top-down assertions, this book researches and navigates its events the way a member of the community would see it and provides a critical review of the experience of the asserted beneficiaries of participatory budgeting, revealing various barriers to actually achieving those benefits. The study reveals a lack of transparency, manipulation by city agencies, the favorable treatment of insider proposed projects, and a failure to reveal the basis of project costs. It also finds that there is no singular participatory budgeting project in New York City. Instead, there are numerous participatory budget projects, as many as there are council members who engage in the practice. Finally Real Money, Real Power provides a ground-level view of these limitations and recommends substantial reform, specifically as it pertains to a lack of transparency, manipulation by city agencies, favorable treatment of insider proposed projects, and a failure to reveal the basis of project costs.

Read more
View the book on Amazon

Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Governance
Associate Professor, Cristina Balboa
The Paradox of Scale: How NGOs Build, Maintain, and Lose Authority in Environmental Governance

Why do NGOs – even the successful ones – have trouble “scaling up”? In Balboa’s book, The Paradox of Scale, Balboa suggests that an NGO’s authority – a combination of capacity and accountability – is an important and often misunderstood factor. She offers insight into how NGOs can build and maintain authority to be more effective. Drawing on case studies of transnational conservation organizations in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, Balboa examines NGO authority, capacity, and accountability to propose that a “paradox of scale” is a primary barrier to NGO effectiveness. This paradox—when what gives an NGO authority on one scale also weakens its authority on another scale—helps explain how NGOs can be seen as an authority on particular causes on a global scale, but then fail to effect change at the local level.

With her research, she offers a framework on how capacity and accountability change across scales. But Associate Professor Balboa doesn’t stop at just defining the problem – her aim is to offer a means to understand the ways NGOs and the broader field of nonprofits can bridge these scales to achieve long-lasting change.

Read more

Read Cristina Balboa’s Marxe faculty spotlights:
2016 Spotlight
2020 Spotlight

The Future of Transnational Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs)
Associate Professor, George Mitchell (w. Hans Peter Schmitz and Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken)
Between Power and Irrelevance: The Future of Transnational NGOs

Between Power and Irrelevance explores geopolitical shifts, growing competition, and ever-increasing demands for accountability that have been driving the need for change in transnational nongovernmental organizations (TNGOs) as their work becomes more complex. Why does this gap between rhetoric and reality exist? What can TNGOs do to close it? The book argues that TNGOs need to address fundamental changes to the conditions in which they operate by bringing their culture into better alignment with their strategic goals. Drawing on varied perspectives including interviews with TNGO leaders, involvement in workshops, consultancies, training institutes, research, and TNGO organizational processes the book offers insights on how to adapt TNGOs to a changing future.

Read more
Read George Mitchell’s Marxe faculty spotlight


Austin W. Marxe School of Public and International Affairs 135 East 22nd Street (Lexington Avenue and 22nd Street) (646) 660-6700
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