PAB Accreditation

The Planning Accreditation Board requires this information be posted for the Master of Urban Planning program.

In keeping with our obligations as an accredited program, we require that students who are finishing the MUP demonstrate that they have attained the basic competence to become professional planners or the ability to enter advanced study and become planning researchers. Though students undergo evaluation and grading throughout their course of study, we especially stress the mandatory culminating exercises, the final project or the thesis, as a demonstration of capability.

Unless permitted to pursue a master’s thesis, our students take 3-credit URP 697: Master’s Project in their final semester. The class asks them each to independently write a planning report of professional quality in response to distinct, real-life, localized problems and opportunities, in a specific place. The report tests abilities to integrate the concepts and skills learned during MUP studies; apply these to a selected geographical area (neighborhood, city, urban area, rural area, or region); work with the limited information and conflicting objectives often encountered in practice; develop proposals about what local officials, government agencies, private or nonprofit organizations, or citizen groups should do; substantiate proposals with appropriate evidence and analysis; present ideas in a clear, well organized document; and accomplish all this against a deadline. The class instructor assigns the municipality on which students prepare their report.                          

In a prepared report, each student must demonstrate

• a clear definition of problem
• effective presentation of background or existing conditions
• appropriate selection of information and an explanation of the limitations of information
• appropriate analysis and interpretation (this is the most important evaluation criterion) with findings flowing from the analysis, and
• appropriate recommendations and proposals for implementation.

The report is further evaluated by its clarity of writing, clarity of organization, appropriate format, appropriate citations and referencing, and appropriate use of figures, maps, and tables. 

An instructor, advised in selected cases by a faculty committee, evaluates the results and assigns a final grade. Students who perform below expectation may graduate based on their grade point average, or may be asked to perform remedial studies, depending on the exact grade.

Though it is a different kind of exercise than the final project, a master’s thesis also demonstrates the ability to synthesize literature and empirical information of relevance to the advancement of professional planning. In our program, students who have shown sufficiently strong academic performance may apply to prepare a thesis instead of a project. Students must prepare a proposal by the early third semester of their study and have it approved by at least two faculty members and the department chair.

• In State Residents, per full-time academic year is $14,862.
• Out of State Residents, per full-time academic year is $27,812.

Percentage of students who began studies in fall 2022 and continued into fall 2023 was 91%.

Percentage of students graduating within 4 years, entering class of 2019 was 75%.

Number of degrees awarded for the 2022 - 2023 Academic Year was 30.

Percentage of master’s graduates taking the AICP exam within 3 years who pass, graduating class of 2019 was not applicable as no students in this graduating class took the exam within 3 years. AICP Exam pass rate data are collected by the APA.  However, all seven of the other recent graduates that took the exam in 2022 passed the exam, resulting in a 100% pass rate.

Percentage of all graduates obtaining professional planning, planning-related or other positions within 12 months of graduation, graduating class of 2022 [1] was 83% [2].

Note 1: A planning position may take place at local, regional, state (province), national, or international levels. It may occur in the public sector, public authority, nonprofit organization, or private sector. Specific fields that constitute planning include: arts and culture planning, community activism/empowerment, community development, consulting, disaster planning, economic development, energy development and planning, environmental planning, GIS and other computer applications to planning, historic preservation and heritage, housing, international development, land use and code enforcement, legal practice related to planning, natural resources planning, neighborhood planning, parks and recreation, planning education, planning for training programs, planning within an architectural or engineering firm, planning management/finance, public health, real estate development, tourism development, transportation planning and analysis, urban design, and waste management. A planning-related position includes consulting, design, development, nonprofit management and administration, policymaking, policy analysis, corporate location, health policy analysis, and public administration that in some way uses your planning skills or contributes to planning objectives but does not fall under the first definition above.

Note 2: The percentage is based on five of six total responses, e.g., 5/6 = 83%. The remaining respondent pursued further education (17%). Of the 28 graduates from 2022, 22 alumni did not respond to the survey or not have a valid email address (79%).

In November, to find out our graduates’ perceptions after graduation, we surveyed graduates of the five preceding year. Please see the 2023 survey results  for full information on our methods, numbers of respondents and actual results. Previous survey results are available at 2022 survey results, 2021 survey results, 2020 survey results, 2019 survey results, 2018 survey results, 2017 survey results, 2016 survey results, 2015 survey results, 2014 survey results and 2013 survey results.

Summarizing across all survey satisfaction questions from 2021 to 2023, our survey shows that 85% were satisfied with their education and that the program had provided them with important planning capabilities. Specifically, 89% expressed satisfaction with practice-based learning experiences, 93% expressed satisfaction with the areas of specialization, 85% agreed that the program had prepared them on questions of ethical practice and justice learning, 76% said they agreed that our graduates were prepared for collaborative practice and client/community participation, 73% agreed that the program taught them to analyze data qualitatively and quantitatively, and 87% agreed that the program prepared them for employment. Overall, we believe that these data reflect well on the quality of our program.

Externally funded research refers to planning research that our faculty performs because of grants from outside foundations and government agencies. The resulting research spans community development, planning for public health, environmental planning, transportation planning, and other fields. Through such research, our faculty contributes to the advancement of knowledge for the planning profession and for the understanding of urban affairs.

We are committed to maintaining a high volume of sponsored research by our faculty members, as befits a leading research university. To measure our faculty productivity in such research, we collected data on actual sponsored research direct expenditures per year. Since many projects involve multiple investigators from many disciplines, we were careful to identify the funding attributable to just our own faculty members. Also, we did not include in this data funds committed to research but not yet spent. The results (see table 1) show sustained research activity, which we expect to grow over the coming years.