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 Pennsylvania offer advanced degrees, such as master’s and doctoral degrees, as well as opportunities for independent research, mentorships, and professional networking.
Prospective students hoping to earn an associate, bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree have over 100 higher learning institutions to choose from. The largest public university is Pennsylvania State University, or Penn State, with a tuition of $18,000, and a student population of over 95,000 across its campuses. As a private institution, the University of Pennsylvania, or simply Penn, is known for its medical, nursing, social work, and business fields. Tuition is $56,000, and the school boasts a 95% graduation rate.
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Students can also attend one of the more than 60 religiously affiliated schools, such as Villanova University or Lafayette College, each with a tuition of about $53,000. Some of the most affordable colleges in the state include the Curtis Institute of Music and the Talmudical Yeshiva of Philadelphia, with tuitions set at $3,000 and $9,000, respectively. Though the average tuition for college in Pennsylvania comes in above the national average, those who practice medicine in underserved areas may qualify for up to $100,000 in loan forgiveness through the Pennsylvania Primary Care Loan Repayment Program.
As the nation’s second state, Pennsylvania’s history runs deep. It’s here where Betsy Ross made the first American flag and where the Declaration of Independence was signed. The Keystone State is also home to some culinary delights, including whoopie pies, soft pretzels, and the famous Philly cheesesteak. Students looking to earn their degree in Pennsylvania will undoubtedly enjoy what the state has to offer.
Check out the state’s top programs and learn more about earning your degree in Pennsylvania.
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 34 doctorate-granting graduate schools in Pennsylvania. Our ranking of the best graduate schools in the Pennsylvania is composed of both private and public schools. To be included, schools must be fully accredited non-profit institutions, and must offer doctoral degrees and a broad array of graduate degrees.
Tuition + fees
$62K
Acceptance
9%
Graduation
96%
Student body
28K
Median SAT/ACT
1505/34
University of Pennsylvania’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$59K
Acceptance
17%
Graduation
93%
Student body
17K
Median SAT/ACT
1510/34
Carnegie Mellon University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$20K
Acceptance
64%
Graduation
84%
Student body
27K
Median SAT/ACT
1350/30
University of Pittsburgh’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$17K
Acceptance
71%
Graduation
75%
Student body
33K
Temple University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$57K
Acceptance
50%
Graduation
88%
Student body
7K
Median SAT/ACT
1365/31
Lehigh University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$57K
Acceptance
77%
Graduation
71%
Student body
23K
Median SAT/ACT
1290/28
Drexel University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$59K
Acceptance
31%
Graduation
92%
Student body
10K
Median SAT/ACT
1395/32
Villanova University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$56K
Acceptance
38%
Graduation
85%
Student body
2K
Bryn Mawr College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$44K
Acceptance
77%
Graduation
79%
Student body
8K
Median SAT/ACT
1215/25
Duquesne University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$43K
Acceptance
70%
Graduation
70%
Student body
7K
Median SAT/ACT
1165/24
Thomas Jefferson University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$35K
Acceptance
79%
Graduation
68%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1135/22
Gannon University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$13K
Acceptance
93%
Graduation
54%
Student body
9K
Median SAT/ACT
1015/19
Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$50K
Acceptance
75%
Graduation
65%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1125/22
Widener University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$48K
Acceptance
80%
Graduation
81%
Student body
6K
Median SAT/ACT
1210/26
Saint Joseph's University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$48K
Acceptance
79%
Graduation
82%
Student body
5K
Median SAT/ACT
1215/26
University of Scranton’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$10K
Acceptance
86%
Graduation
75%
Student body
16K
Median SAT/ACT
1120/23
West Chester University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$36K
Acceptance
64%
Graduation
58%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1130/23
Eastern University ’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$10K
Acceptance
74%
Graduation
69%
Student body
9K
Median SAT/ACT
1085/21
Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$46K
Acceptance
74%
Graduation
65%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1145/24
Arcadia University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$33K
Acceptance
86%
Graduation
69%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1115/24
Robert Morris University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$40K
Acceptance
92%
Graduation
64%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1119/23
Wilkes University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$28K
Acceptance
82%
Graduation
70%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1050/21
Immaculata University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$34K
Acceptance
80%
Graduation
51%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1005/18
Neumann University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$32K
Acceptance
78%
Graduation
57%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1020/20
Holy Family University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$36K
Acceptance
70%
Graduation
55%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1085/22
Point Park University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Many of our 2022 undergraduate focused rankings look considerably different than 2021. That’s because we took a fundamentally different apporach. For 2021 we utiulized our Concentrated Influence algorithm, designed to take away the size advantage larger schools have when we rank their faculty and alumni’s academic influence. Concentrated influence highlights smaller schools that are proportionally as successful as larger universities at cultivating influential alumni and faculty.