Kent State Master of Public Health
This school appears in our ranking of the Top 10 MPH Programs with No Out-of-State Tuition Fees.
Kent State University doesn’t offer just one Master of Public Health (MPH) degree program like other schools do. Its MPH program provides students with more opportunities because they pick a specialty area in one of five topics. The program features 19 credits of core public health classes, six credits of electives and six credits that students earn through their practicum work. Students will also take 15 credits from within one of the program’s specialty areas, which changes what they study.
Epidemiology is one of the specialty areas available. It allows students to study diseases and how diseases spread. Students can study biostatistics and focus more on research. The university also offers specialty areas in environmental health sciences, health policy and management and social and behavioral sciences. They can take courses from one of the other specialty areas as one or more of their electives. Both the social and behavioral sciences and health policy and management programs are available entirely online. All other programs are available on the Kent State campus.
The required core courses that all MPH students take include Public Health Administration, Social and Behavioral Sciences Theories, Fundamentals of Public Health Epidemiology and Biostatistics in Public Health. Students will also take a class called Emerging Issues in Public Health Policy and Management that focuses on current trends and rising issues in the field.
Kent State requires that MPH students do a practicum. They do at least 300 hours of fieldwork while working under the guidance of a professional. They will then take a final course and create a portfolio that includes work they did in their classes and work completed in the practicum component. The Kent State University Master of Public Health program includes a comprehensive final exam that all students must take and pass too.
About Kent State University
Kent State University is the name given to a flagship campus in Kent, Ohio and several smaller regional campuses in other parts of the state. Founded in 1910 as the Ohio State Normal College At Kent, it initially offered programs designed to educate teachers. Schools across the Midwest and in other parts of the country had a high need for teachers at that time. It also served as the Kent State Normal School and Kent State Normal College before becoming Kent State College and then Kent State University. Many call it KSU or Kent State today.
To meet the needs of students living outside of Kent, the university established campuses in cities like Salem and Ashtabula. Many of these schools operate as junior colleges and only offer classes for freshmen and sophomores. Students can transfer their credits to the main campus after completing two years at a smaller campus. Many of these campuses also offer programs for high school students that let them take college classes they can transfer to another school later.
The Kent State campus now covers more than 860 acres and features a memorial to the students who passed away during a war protest in the 1960s. Enrollment on its main campus in Kent now tops more than 23,000 undergrads and more than 5,000 graduate students.
Kent State University Accreditation Details
The Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) is very selective with what programs receive its accreditation. It looks at how those programs prepare students for the future, the background of the professors working in the program and the classes that students take. Kent State is one of the only universities in Ohio with CEPH accreditation for its MPH program. The university also has accreditation from the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (NCACS), which is a type of regional accreditation that comes in handy when students want to transfer credits and when they want to apply for and use federal and state financial aid.
Kent State University Application Requirements
Kent State will only accept students who maintained a grade point average of 3.0 or higher in their undergrad years. Those applying to the university will need to visit the admissions website and choose the option to create a new account. This account lets them work on the application whenever they want and lets them log in to see if the university made a final decision on that application. The application asks students to submit both a goals statement and a writing sample. Students will need to create a list of their future goals that includes both their graduate school and professional goals. They’ll also need to upload a sample of their writing.
Other requirements for students applying to the university’s MPH program include both an official GRE score and an official transcript. Kent State will only accept GRE scores that are no more than five years old. Those who took the test more than five years ago will need to take it again. They must also submit official transcripts from any colleges or universities they attended. Kent State also asks for three letters of recommendation that must come from people familiar with the student’s college studies.
Tuition and Financial Aid
Ohio residents attending a Kent State graduate program pay around $23,200 a year. The tuition rate charged by the university is $9,270 a year, but the university estimates that students will pay more than twice that amount for transportation, supplies and other costs. Graduate students who are nonresidents and lived in other states before applying and enrolling pay a little more than $16,700 a year. Kent State charges these amounts for full-time enrollment, which allows students to take nine credits of work per semester. The university does not have any residence halls or dorms for graduate students but can help them find places to live close to its campus.
Any student who wants to attend Kent State but needs financial help should fill out the FAFSA. They can submit this document online the year before enrolling or several months before signing up for their first classes. Most graduate students will receive federal unsubsidized loans. They can borrow a little more than $20,000 a year and can make payments on their loans while still in school or after they graduate. Kent State University can also apply for alternative student loans to bridge the gap between the amount they have and the amount they need for the coming school semester or year.
