Today, the international development community is more focused on evidence-based policy and results-driven development than ever before. Increasingly, understanding and producing rigorous empirical work using microdata plays a central role in many development professionals’ careers – and employers in governments, NGOs, foundations, international agencies, and others are actively looking for people with stronger technical skills than were required in the past.
If you want to acquire a powerful set of tools and skills to understand and tackle the problems facing world’s poor, get trained in data analysis, engage with cutting-edge research, and learn how to design and evaluate social policies that strive to solve some of the world's most pressing challenges, this program is for you. No matter where you are in the world, you can now join courses taught by faculty based at MIT’s world-famous economics department and at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, a world leader in policy-relevant research – on your own schedule, and at a fraction of the cost of traditional Master's programs in the field.
Beyond earning a valuable credential certifying your command of the principles of economics, the design of randomized evaluations, and data analysis to employers and graduate school selection committees, MicroMasters graduates are also eligible to apply to the Department of Economics' first-ever Master's program: the Master's program in Data, Economics and Development Policy. In fact, we will only consider graduates of our MicroMasters program, with the performance in the online courses and proctored exams as a key factor guiding our admissions process! A unique feature of this master's program is that accepted students earn MIT credit for the classes they completed online: If admitted, you will arrive on MIT's campus in Cambridge with one semester of coursework under your belt, fast-track your Master's program, and earn an MIT graduate degree within approximately half a year of arriving in Cambridge.