Swagel left the Treasury Department on January 20, 2009, the day Barack Obama was inaugurated as Bush's successor. Later that year he joined the McDonough School of Business of Georgetown University as a visiting professor and director of the school's Center for Financial Institutions, Policy, and Governance. There he taught classes on the role of financial markets in the broader economy. In 2011 he became Professor in International Economic Policy at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. He is also an academic fellow of the Center for Financial Policy at the university's Robert H. Smith School of Business, a senior fellow at the Milken Institute, and a non-resident scholar at AEI. He has also taught classes at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.