SUNY New Paltz was named the No. 9 public university in the North region, and earned recognition on lists including Best Value Schools, Best Colleges for Veterans, Top Performers on Social Mobility and Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs, in the 2021 edition of U.S. News & World Report’s college rankings.
New Paltz came in at No. 45 among all non-doctoral public and private colleges in the Northeast, the second-highest ranking among SUNY comprehensive colleges.
In total, SUNY New Paltz was honored on 11 of the Report’s Best College rankings. Three of these focus specifically on graduate programs: The College was named one of the 15 best MFA programs in New York State, and also appeared on lists of the nation’s best graduate-level business schools and best speech-language pathology programs.
“New Paltz is proud of its ranking among its peers and competitors and appreciate the neutral, third-party endorsement rankings like this represent,” said L. David Eaton, vice president for enrollment management. “Such measures can never substitute for an in-person campus visit and virtual or face-to-face interactions with an institution’s students, faculty and staff, because these are necessary for prospective students to assess the personality, feel and ‘fit’ of the place that will be home for the rest of their undergraduate career. However, rankings can be instrumental in creating a short-list of campuses to investigate on the journey to choosing where to apply.”
Rankings breakdown
The U.S. News & World Report evaluated 1,452 colleges and universities this year, based on publicly available data and qualitative surveys on indicators like first-year student retention, graduation rates and reputational factors measures by peer-assessment survey.
This comprehensive methodology allows the publication to create highly specified lists across a range of sub-categories. SUNY New Paltz was included on a number of these narrowly tailored lists:
- Best Colleges for Veterans (No. 21 in the Northeast): This list includes high-performing institutions that serve a significant number of students who are veterans or active military members. New Paltz has consistently appeared as one of the top SUNY institutions on this list, a testament the outstanding support delivered by the Office of Veteran & Military Services to the hundreds of military-affiliated students it serves each year.
- Best Undergraduate Teaching (No. 22 in the Northeast): This list polls top college administrators on which colleges have the strongest commitment to teaching undergraduates.
- Top Performers in Social Mobility (No. 60 in the Northeast): An evaluation of colleges’ ability to produce successful graduation rates and outcomes for students who received federal Pell Grants, generally awarded to students and families with exceptional financial need.
- Best Value Schools (No. 68 in the Northeast): U.S. News calculates this list by comparing schools’ places in academic rankings against the cost of tuition and other financial aid-related factors.
- SUNY New Paltz was also ranked among the Best Undergraduate Business Programs and the Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs, remaining one of the only colleges in the SUNY system to earn this double distinction. Both these lists are based on peer surveys sent to large and diverse groups of higher education professionals.
For more information on methodology and to see the full rankings, visit the U.S. News & World Report online.
SUNY New Paltz in College and University Rankings
SUNY New Paltz is consistently ranked among the nation’s top public colleges by a variety of highly regarded publications. Recently, the College was named a Top 10 Military Friendly® School; the Social Mobility Index placed New Paltz in the top three percent nationwide in its measurement of students’ success climbing the socioeconomic ladder; and Kiplinger’s Personal Finance named SUNY New Paltz the No. 3 Best College Value in the SUNY system.
