Graduate School of Political Management

Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University is, according to its website, "the premier school in the nation for professional applied politics. The first school of its kind in the U.S., GW’s Graduate School of Political Management currently has 250 students enrolled in graduate degree programs, as well as students involved in international and external programs. More than 1,500 of  GW’s Graduate School of Political Management’s alumni can be found working in Congressional offices, public affairs, political and issue campaigns, trade associations, lobbying firms, and consulting.  The school has been hailed by The New York Times as the “West Point of the Political Wars” and was recently mentioned in The Washington Post as having courses influential in the lobbying industry.

History
The GWU GSPM website reports that it "began in 1986, when Neil Fabricant, a lawyer from New York City and former Legislative Director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, convinced the New York State Board of Regents that a school of professional politics – not political science, not public policy, not public administration – was necessary and desirable. He realized that a new profession of politics was coming into being and that a dedicated school could nurture that development and, in the process, improve democratic politics. Fabricant’s creative vision led to the founding of the Graduate School of Political Management, which began classes in September of 1987 with 24 students." 

Website

 * http://www.gwu.edu/~gspm/