Online Master of Public Administration (MPA) in Sustainability

Our online MPA in Sustainability prepares you to lead initiatives for governments, nonprofits, and businesses to advance environmentally sustainable solutions. Gain expertise in economic viability, environmental protection, and social equity—the three pillars of sustainability— as well as organizational development and leadership. Inspire change in your organization while stewarding human, financial, and environmental resources.

Advance Your Career

With an online MPA degree from the Middlebury Institute, you can design and implement systems-based solutions to urgent sustainability and climate challenges. Whether you want to work in government, nonprofit, or the corporate world, the interdisciplinary knowledge you gain in this graduate degree program can help you turn your passion for making a difference into a dynamic and meaningful career.

• VP of Sustainability: $177K per year
• Sustainability Officer: $110K per year
• Sustainability Manager: $90K per year
• Environmental Project Manager: $76K per year

Salary information from Payscale.com.

Career Services

Your career advisor from our Center for Advising and Career Services will help you tailor your skills development, career exploration, and professional opportunities aligned with your experience, interests, and goals.

Alumni Network

Our large and influential alumni network in the sustainability industry is eager to help you take the next step in your career. They are thriving in careers around the world. Many top employers seek out our graduates as their go-to hires.

Curriculum

You’ll build expertise in the following areas:

• Science: Understand and mobilize climate and sustainability science along with threats and solutions to sustainability
• Policy: Understand sustainability-related policies, standards, frameworks, good practices, including in public-private partnerships, stakeholders and their implementation at global, national and local levels
• Risk Assessment: Conduct climate and Environmental & Social Governance (ESG) risk assessment, including compliance and reporting
• Equity and Ethics: Design sustainability strategies and initiatives through the lens of social and climate justice
• Project/Program Management: Design, implement, manage and evaluate sustainability-related programs and projects with a systems thinking perspective

Explore your curriculum.

Faculty: Professors and Practitioners

While other graduate schools rely on teaching assistants, our students have direct access to our faculty, who combine academic expertise with years of professional experience in major international organizations, including the United Nations, State Department, and World Bank.

Your professors are committed to your success and, together with your career advisor, will become your mentors and colleagues throughout your career. 

Meet your faculty.

Interactive Online Learning

Our interactive approach to online learning provides a high level of engagement with your faculty, career advisor, classmates, and alumni. You will join a supportive community and build a vast, experienced professional network while taking advantage of our flexible course scheduling. 

Our online programs provide the same top-level expertise and instruction that the Middlebury Institute is known for, with the added flexibility for you to continue working while you earn your degree.

• Asynchronous, meaning you don’t have to attend live class meetings and can complete weekly coursework on your schedule
• Part-time, so you can continue to work while you earn your degree
• Not time-zone dependent, allowing you to work worldwide.

Tuition and Financial Aid

Tuition for all of our online programs is $850/credit.

• The online MPA in Sustainability degree program is 30 credits, so your total tuition cost for this master’s program will be approximately $25,500.
• Tuition rates are subject to change each year.
• We have designed this program to allow you to continue working as you earn your online master’s. Your asynchronous courses allow you to engage with each lesson on your own schedule. 
• Our Student Financial Services team will help you understand, manage, and finance your costs, including education loans.
• Contact your employer’s HR department to ask about tuition benefits.
• We offer full tuition coverage for qualifying veterans and their eligible dependents through the Post-9/11 GI Bill® and the Yellow Ribbon Program.
• Middlebury Institute scholarships are not available for online programs due to the reduced tuition rate.
• Many organizations offer funding for graduate school and this list of resources has been helpful to students in the past.

Review the tuition costs.

How to Apply

We take a holistic approach when considering your application, looking at your academic and professional background, international and multicultural experience, and career goals. We welcome applicants with or without relevant work experience, and our program has numerous opportunities for you to gain or expand your professional experience before you graduate.

We do not require GRE or GMAT scores for our master’s programs, but competitive scores may strengthen your application.

Learn how to apply.