Description: In this first-of-its-kind profile of the public service profession, award-winning author Paul C. Light examines two decades of change in the career patterns and motivations of America's top public servants. Drawing upon interviews with 1,000 graduates of the nation's top twenty public policy and administration graduate schools, Light clearly documents the end of the traditional public service career as defined by long service in government. Graduates no longer imagine thirty-year careers in government as the only way to make an impact on national issues. They are just as likely to start their public service careers in the nonprofit or private sectors today than in government, and intend to switch back and forth during their careers.

This book addresses four questions about the public service as seen through the careers of five classes of students: Where did these students come from and how have their tracks into graduate work changed? Where did they go after graduation and how have their careers evolved? What were they looking for from public service and how have their motivations changed over the quarter century covered by the survey? And how well have their graduate programs served them in their careers?

Light argues that the nation's young professionals have changed little in their basic desire to make a difference through public service. Many are rejecting government for their first jobs because the most interesting jobs have moved to the private and nonprofit sectors. By letting top graduates speak in their own voices about recent changes in how government works, this book offers a clear agenda that can help government make its invitation to service more attractive in large part by making that service more meaningful.

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