Graduate school may be a critical step in your higher education, whether you are interested in expanding your knowledge, learning a specialization, or earning advanced credentials required by your profession. The best graduate schools in New York offer advanced degrees, such as master’s and doctoral degrees, as well as opportunities for independent research, mentorships, and professional networking.
On average, tuition at New York’s higher education institutes comes in well-below the national average at about $7,900. Students have nearly 80 public school options to choose from, ranging in fees from $1,000 at the United States Merchant Marine Academy up to $10,000 at the University at Buffalo, the largest public university. However, some of the state’s private schools, such as New York University (NYU), charge tuition fees at a much higher cost.
Find college admissions consultants in your state.
Although tuition fees at NYU average $52,000, students who attend this school have access to some of the best programs in fields like literature, business, medicine, communications, and law. The school also boasts famous alumni like Whoopi Goldberg and Jonas Salk. New York also offers close to 40 religiously affiliated schools. Students can expect to pay a wide range of tuition costs at these schools, but have the option to major in fields like social work, law, religious studies, business, and nursing.
They say New York is a place where dreams come true. Here, fashion, culture, food, business, art, and many languages comfortably coexist. While The Empire State’s metropolitan landmarks, like the iconic Brooklyn Bridge, are noteworthy, many forget New York also offers access to the Great Lakes, the Atlantic Ocean, and countless cozy cabins tucked away in the verdant Catskills Mountains. Additionally, New York is home to over 200 colleges and universities, making it easy for students to dream big while earning their degrees.
Explore some of the top programs New York higher education institutes have to offer, and make your educational and personal dreams come true.
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There are 37 doctorate-granting universities in New York; 31 of which meet our criteria. The top 25 graduate schools in the state are composed of both private and public schools that satisfy the following four conditions:
The people affiliated with a school are ultimately what make it great. This is why influence gets at the heart of what is truly best in education. At the undergraduate level, the best colleges and universities are those with the highest concentration of influence. Our Concentrated Influence metric adjusts overall influence by size of undergraduate student body, thus allowing smaller schools to compete with larger schools so long as they have proportionately as strong influential faculty and alums.
But at the graduate level, the combined influence score of a college or university’s top academic influencers is the best indicator of academic excellence. Overall influence, and not influence controlled by other variables, thus becomes the best gauge of academic excellence at the graduate level. Where smaller size is an advantage at the undergraduate level (hence Concentrated Influence), graduate studies benefit from a large and vibrant community of graduate students, who promise to become the new generation of academic influencers.
If you are serious about finding the best graduate schools, you should be asking where the most influential professors are teaching, and whether their graduates themselves are advancing the school’s reputation for academic excellence. Most ranking sites rely on an opaque combination of reputation surveys and arbitrary performance metrics. Influence, as measured by our InfluenceRanking engine, provides a ranking that is free from bias, insulated from manipulation, and reflective of real-world educational outcomes.
Find out more about our methodology here.
Less Tuition + fees
$61K
Acceptance
7%
Graduation
96%
Student body
28K
Median SAT/ACT
1505/34
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Columbia University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$53K
Acceptance
21%
Graduation
88%
Student body
48K
Median SAT/ACT
1440/32
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New York University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$57K
Acceptance
11%
Graduation
95%
Student body
25K
Median SAT/ACT
1480/33
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Cornell University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$52K
Acceptance
69%
Graduation
83%
Student body
23K
Median SAT/ACT
1280/28
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Syracuse University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$51K
Acceptance
69%
Graduation
69%
Student body
10K
Median SAT/ACT
1265/27
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The New School’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$56K
Acceptance
35%
Graduation
86%
Student body
11K
Median SAT/ACT
1405/32
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University of Rochester’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$10K
Acceptance
49%
Graduation
76%
Student body
24K
Median SAT/ACT
1335/29
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Stony Brook University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
67%
Graduation
75%
Student body
28K
Median SAT/ACT
1250/26
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University at Buffalo’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$54K
Acceptance
53%
Graduation
83%
Student body
15K
Median SAT/ACT
1345/30
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Fordham University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$55K
Acceptance
57%
Graduation
87%
Student body
9K
Median SAT/ACT
1390/31
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Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$45K
Acceptance
67%
Graduation
77%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1270/27
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Yeshiva University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$10K
Acceptance
43%
Graduation
82%
Student body
18K
Median SAT/ACT
1360/30
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Binghamton University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$56K
Acceptance
57%
Graduation
74%
Student body
2K
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Bard College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Student body
4K
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Graduate Center, CUNY’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$48K
Acceptance
69%
Graduation
65%
Student body
9K
Median SAT/ACT
1250/27
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Hofstra University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$10K
Acceptance
57%
Graduation
65%
Student body
16K
Median SAT/ACT
1170/25
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University at Albany, SUNY’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Student body
4K
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Teachers College, Columbia University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$45K
Acceptance
74%
Graduation
71%
Student body
14K
Median SAT/ACT
1315/29
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Rochester Institute of Technology’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
41%
Graduation
73%
Student body
15K
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Baruch College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$40K
Acceptance
75%
Graduation
73%
Student body
8K
Median SAT/ACT
1155/24
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Adelphi University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$51K
Acceptance
78%
Graduation
76%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1255/26
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Clarkson University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$31K
Acceptance
64%
Graduation
61%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1060/22
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Alfred University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$35K
Acceptance
92%
Graduation
77%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1125/23
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Niagara University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$35K
Acceptance
68%
Graduation
72%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1165/23
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St. John Fisher College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
What are Custom College Rankings?
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