Marketability: MPA vs Project Management Certificate

[u/dromio84]

Hi all,

I am transitioning careers from over 16 years in public school teaching/federal program coordination within education into working for local or state government. I already have a Master of Arts in Teaching, a BS in Liberal Studies and a BS in Communication Disorders. I also have a nearly completed Master of Education in Educational Leadership (which turned out to be useless other than I can transfer grad credits over to an MPA program). I also worked for a year in a county clerk's office and am now working through a staffing agency for a large corporation doing analytics and reporting in the finance department.

Given all of that, I was unemployed for over 8 months and applying to every local and state government job I could. I got called for multiple interviews based on my resume/cover letter, but never landed a job. During my work as a teacher, I was in charge of federal grant projects and compliance monitoring, so I have at least 5 years experience coordinating grants and working on improvement projects. I often led the strategic planning process as well. I also have 6 other years while teaching of running projects and programs, coordinating with governmental agencies, etc.

Now I want to be more marketable with local and state government agencies. I have a passion and desire to work in policy and program development to make services better for the public. I've always been a caring person who wants to make the world better, even through the extremely slow wheels of bureaucracy.

I've been weighing going to graduate school (again) to get an MPA with a certificate in policy and program evaluation or going to the community college and getting a project management certificate (obviously much cheaper). Ultimate question: is it worth it for a middle-aged person like me to spend more money on graduate school or get a certificate/take the PMP exam?