Public Administration is of the hottest master's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #19 most popular major in the country. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 10 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Public Administration Master's Degree Schools in New York ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 1,594 master's degrees in public administration to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Public Administration School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of public administration for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality public admin program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their master's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your master's degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.
Other Factors We Consider
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to public administration students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other public administration students want to attend this school to pursue a master's degree.
Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
Student Debt - How easy is it for public administration to pay back their student loans after receiving their master's degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized public administration related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for public administration students working on their master's degree.
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Public Administration Master's Degree Schools in New York list to help you make the college decision.
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Any student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in public administration needs to check out New York University. Located in the large city of New York, NYU is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Those public administration students who get their master's degree from New York University earn $12,880 more than the typical public admin grad.
Every student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in public administration has to take a look at Syracuse University. Syracuse is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the medium-sized city of Syracuse.
Public Administration master's degree recipients from Syracuse University get an earnings boost of approximately $12,781 above the average income of public administration graduates.
It is difficult to beat Cornell University if you wish to pursue a master's degree in public administration. Cornell is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Ithaca.
Students who graduate with their master's from the public admin program state that they receive average early career income of $61,190.
It is difficult to beat Baruch College if you wish to pursue a master's degree in public administration. Located in the city of New York, Baruch is a public college with a fairly large student population.
Public Administration master's degree recipients from Baruch College get an earnings boost of around $9,390 above the typical earnings of public administration majors.
Located in the large suburb of Poughkeepsie, Marist is a private not-for-profit college with a moderately-sized student population.
Public Administration master's degree recipients from Marist College earn a boost of approximately $14,705 above the average income of public administration majors.
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).
Your choice of public administration for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality public admin program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
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