Here are the most affordable colleges and universities in New York. Our list will help you find the right kind of school for you, at a price you can afford.
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.
The people affiliated with a school are ultimately what make it great! If you are serious about finding the best colleges and universities for a bachelor’s degree, you should be asking where the most influential professors are teaching and whether their graduates are themselves advancing the school’s reputation for academic excellence in their fields of study.
Most ranking sites rely on an opaque combination of reputation surveys and arbitrary performance metrics. Concentrated Influence provides a ranking that is freer from bias, insulated from manipulation, and reflective of real-world educational outcomes.
To rank the influence of schools, we first determine the influence of scholars and professionals based on the number of citations and publications they have had over the past 10 years. In addition to publications and citations, we consider the web links to and from these sources, and the page views of those sources. We then match the influential people to their alma maters and institutions of employment, so that their influence is attributed to those schools. Our machine-learning Influence Ranking algorithm produces a numerical score of academic achievements, merits, and citations across Wikipedia, wikidata, Crossref, Semantic Scholar and an ever-growing body of data. If you are interested in exploring how and why we rank by influence, explore our methodology in more depth.
There are 47 affordable colleges and universities in New York with stated tuitions and fees under $20,000/year. The following list of the most affordable colleges and universities in New York is composed entirely of schools offering bachelor’s degree programs, have stated tuition and fees near or under the national average of $16,000/year, and are fully accredited colleges.
These schools are ranked by academic excellence, and all under $20,000/year.
Tuition + fees
$10K
Acceptance
49%
Graduation
76%
Student body
25K
Median SAT/ACT
1335/29
Stony Brook University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
51%
Graduation
60%
Student body
12K
City College of New York’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
67%
Graduation
75%
Student body
28K
Median SAT/ACT
1250/26
University at Buffalo’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
50%
Graduation
54%
Student body
15K
Brooklyn College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Acceptance
9%
Graduation
85%
Student body
6K
Median SAT/ACT
1270/27
United States Military Academy’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$10K
Acceptance
43%
Graduation
82%
Student body
18K
Median SAT/ACT
1360/30
Binghamton University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
40%
Graduation
56%
Student body
19K
Hunter College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$10K
Acceptance
57%
Graduation
65%
Student body
16K
Median SAT/ACT
1170/25
University at Albany, SUNY’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
41%
Graduation
73%
Student body
16K
Baruch College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
53%
Graduation
53%
Student body
16K
Queens College, City University of New York’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
59%
Graduation
83%
Student body
8K
Fashion Institute of Technology’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
37%
Graduation
51%
Student body
13K
John Jay College of Criminal Justice’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
74%
Graduation
61%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1160/26
State University of New York at Purchase’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
47%
Graduation
53%
Student body
12K
Lehman College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$1K
Acceptance
24%
Graduation
82%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1260/28
United States Merchant Marine Academy’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
62%
Graduation
76%
Student body
7K
Median SAT/ACT
1185/25
State University of New York at New Paltz’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
69%
Graduation
65%
Student body
7K
Median SAT/ACT
1155/23
State University of New York at Oswego’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Graduation
31%
Student body
10K
College of Staten Island’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Student body
6K
Excelsior College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
60%
Graduation
77%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1210/25
State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$16K
Acceptance
80%
Graduation
65%
Student body
<1K
Median SAT/ACT
1190/24
Houghton College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
63%
Graduation
76%
Student body
6K
Median SAT/ACT
1080/23
State University of New York at Oneonta’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
80%
Graduation
40%
Student body
8K
Median SAT/ACT
980/20
Buffalo State College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
72%
Graduation
58%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1055/21
Alfred State College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
61%
Graduation
78%
Student body
5K
Median SAT/ACT
1215/25
State University of New York at Geneseo’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
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