Educated Citizenry or Workforce Pipeline Development? Questions for the Future of Undergraduate Public Health in the United States

The spring of 2020 will undoubtedly be associated with COVID-19 lockdowns, hospital surges, death, and political turmoil. But as COVID-19 began to fundamentally reshape the relationship between public health and the public in the United States, another public health milestone occurred: the spring of 2020 represented the first time that more undergraduate public health degrees were awarded in the nation than master's degrees. In 2020,18 289 undergraduate public health degrees (UGPHDs) were conferred compared with 18 044 master's degrees (Figure 1 ).1 This milestone at this critical moment offers an opportunity to assess the degree and its growth over the past two decades, and to pose key questions for its future.