Throughout Europe, many high level politicians have attended prestigious schools and universities that specifically focus on politics. These schools have politically focused programs that guide students towards a career in public service. In the United States, our politicians navigate through the politics path a number of ways.
Elected government positions are the only jobs that have no required criteria that prospective candidates must meet besides a minimum age. They do not need a college degree or any relative success at all.
Policy schools such as Ivy League universities, produce an abundance of politicians but critics suggest that the missions of the institutions have been diluted.
Julian Zelizer, a presidential historian at Princeton University, says, “Some of the best traits in electoral politics can’t be taught. They come from the skill of human interaction or the instinct about how to cut a deal. Expertise gained through formal training “is worth a lot,” Julian says. “But we would not want to cut out people who come from a long tradition, like an LBJ, of learning about politics by doing politics.”
Formal training or required certification of candidates can potentially deter the ordinary citizen from running for office. Requiring certificates, etcetera, of candidates pre-election would bar worthy citizens from running.
Ordinary, commonsense workhorses are the best and most successful politicians regardless of their education. Those who respect and value the diversity of this country so deeply that they take pride in building consensus, as opposing to mowing over the opposition to win, are who will succeed.
For more information read on at http://www.npr.org/blogs/theprotojournalist/2014/06/04/318437256/should-there-be-a-university-of-politics