Ranked, compared, and filtered by real data: costs, outcomes, and admissions
The SUNY system, with 64 campuses ranging from research universities to technical colleges, is the largest comprehensive public university system in the country, making New York one of the few states where genuinely affordable higher education is available in nearly every region.
Columbia, Cornell, NYU, and Fordham give the state's private sector real range at the top, while the CUNY system serves New York City's enormous population of first-generation and immigrant students at a scale that is almost incomprehensible from the outside.
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See how New York's colleges compare to the national average on the four measures most students and families weigh when deciding where to go: cost, acceptance rates, graduate earnings, and graduation rates.
The colleges in New York that rank highest by UCD Score, and those that deliver above-national graduate earnings at a below-average net price, two of the strongest signals when choosing a school.
Not every student is looking for the same thing. These six panels rank New York's colleges by the data that matters most for each path.
Ranked by annual graduates
Ranked by annual graduates
Ranked by annual graduates
Ranked by net price
Ranked by enrollment
Ranked by grad earnings
Which colleges give you the most for what you spend? These eight schools rank highest in New York by the ratio of 10-year graduate earnings to annual net price.
| # | College | Net Price / yr | Earnings (10yr) | Ratio | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CUNY Bernard M Baruch College New York | $3,033 | $75,971 | 25.1× | Excellent |
| 2 | CUNY Hunter College New York | $2,984 | $63,163 | 21.2× | Excellent |
| 3 | CUNY Brooklyn College Brooklyn | $3,103 | $60,752 | 19.6× | Excellent |
| 4 | CUNY Lehman College Bronx | $3,148 | $58,013 | 18.4× | Excellent |
| 5 | CUNY John Jay College of Criminal Justice New York | $3,203 | $56,195 | 17.5× | Excellent |
| 6 | CUNY City College New York | $3,776 | $66,039 | 17.5× | Excellent |
| 7 | CUNY Queens College Queens | $4,195 | $62,763 | 15.0× | Excellent |
| 8 | United States Merchant Marine Academy Kings Point | $6,174 | $90,610 | 14.7× | Excellent |
ROI Ratio = median earnings 10 years after enrollment ÷ annual net price. Higher is better.
The six fields of study with the most annual graduates across all colleges in New York, based on IPEDS completion data.
The specific degree programs producing the most graduates across New York's colleges. A more granular view than the Popular Majors above, useful when you already know roughly what you want to study and want to see where the volume is.
Careers with a strong employment footprint in New York. What graduates from local colleges actually go on to do. State-level employment is shown where the BLS publishes it; national wage + growth shown alongside.
The cities in New York with the most colleges, ranked by number of institutions.
Utah crowds 14,137 students into each of its colleges, four times the national norm. These are the states where college options are scarcest per student.
There are 170 colleges that operate a medical school, and they cluster hard. Texas leads with 14, three states hold a fifth of them, and four states have none.
Northeast college graduates earn about $12,700 more a decade out than Southern ones, but they also pay thousands more to get there. The regional split, by the numbers.
Browse our full directory: every college, major, program, and career we track, all built from verified government data.
Scout uses AI and can make mistakes. Verify important numbers on the page.
