Urban Studies is about average in terms of popularity for master's degrees programs. That is, it ranks #171 out of the 343 majors across the country that we analyze each year. As such, the degree program isn't offered at every college in the United States, but there are schools that do have a program in the field that are top-notch when it comes to quality.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 3 schools in New York to determine which ones were the best for urban studies students pursuing a master's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 108 master's degrees in urban studies to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Urban Studies School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of urban studies for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality urban studies program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
The overall quality of a master's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we consider a school's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a collection of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Earnings
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their master's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their master's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
Other Factors We Consider
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on urban studies students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other urban studies students want to attend this school to pursue a master's degree.
Educational Resources - How many resources are allocated to students. These resources may include educational expenditures per student, number of students per instructor, and graduation rate among other things.
Student Debt - How much debt urban studies students go into to obtain their master's degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized urban studies related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for urban studies students working on their master's degree.
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Urban Studies Master's Degree Schools in New York list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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Hunter College is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a master's degree in urban studies. Hunter is a fairly large public college located in the large city of New York.
Urban Studies master's degree recipients from Hunter College earn a boost of approximately $4,592 above the average income of urban studies majors.
Queens College is a wonderful choice for students interested in a master's degree in urban studies. QC is a fairly large public college located in the city of Queens.
After graduating, urban studies master's recipients usually earn around $62,828 at the beginning of their careers.
The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).
by our College Data Analytics Team
Your choice of urban studies for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality urban studies program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
