Quad
Trends by state

Trends by state

New York

165 colleges on the site: 39 public, 120 private nonprofit, 6 for-profit. Their undergraduates fell 6% in total since fall 2014, to 550,993 today (121 of 165 New York colleges in the panel).

Explore New York's colleges

How New York's colleges changed

The median New York college, fall 2014 to fall 2024, against the national median (dashed) over the same .

Undergraduates

-8%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Applicants

+38%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Acceptance rate

+8.9 pts

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Average total cost

-10%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Public and private

State stories are often public-system stories: a state's publics shrinking while its privates hold, or the reverse.

Public

37 colleges
Undergrads
-13%
Applicants
+40%
Acceptance rate
+19.4 pts
Average cost
-14%

Private nonprofit

79 colleges
Undergrads
-5%
Applicants
+39%
Acceptance rate
+3.2 pts
Average cost
-9%

Where New York's first-years come from

Top sending states

  1. New York (in-state)74%
  2. NJ5%
  3. CA3%
  4. MA2%
  5. PA2%
  6. CT2%
  7. TX1%
  8. FL1%

Public:

3% → 3% (39 colleges)

Private nonprofit:

19% → 19% (120 colleges)

First-years crossing state lines, fall 2024

Inflow
27,290
Outflow
32,496
Net
-5,206

New York's colleges enroll 0.8 first-years from other states for every New York resident who starts college in another state, among four-year colleges on this site.

Colleges taking the most of the inflow

  1. New York University10%
  2. Syracuse University9%
  3. Cornell University7%
  4. Rochester Institute of Technology6%
  5. Fordham University5%

One fall, over campus-based colleges only: not that fall, not for-profit, and not a campus that merged or split.

Biggest movers in New York

The same as the national lists, restricted to New York's colleges.

Applications surged

, fall 2014 to fall 2024

Median college: +34.2% (87 colleges ranked)

  1. 1Colgate University+137.3%8,717 → 20,682
  2. 2SUNY Polytechnic Institute+136.5%2,253 → 5,329
  3. 3Adelphi University+123.8%8,806 → 19,705
  4. 4SUNY Old Westbury+122.4%3,490 → 7,760
  5. 5New York University+118.1%50,804 → 110,807
  6. 6Barnard College+108.5%5,676 → 11,836
  7. 7Farmingdale State College+107.4%5,183 → 10,748
  8. 8Molloy University+93.2%3,277 → 6,330
  9. 9Sarah Lawrence College+93.0%2,392 → 4,617
  10. 10Pace University+91.0%15,722 → 30,030

Sources:IPEDS Admissions survey, Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Fall Enrollment survey (distance education), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024About the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)

Top 10 and how it's ranked

Grew the most

, fall 2014 to fall 2024

Median college: −10.0% (98 colleges ranked)

  1. 1Uta Mesivta of Kiryas Joel+81.0%1,634 → 2,957
  2. 2University of Mount Saint Vincent+61.1%1,671 → 2,692
  3. 3Barnard College+27.7%2,556 → 3,264
  4. 4Fordham University+23.9%8,485 → 10,512
  5. 5Farmingdale State College+23.0%7,768 → 9,552
  6. 6Pratt Institute-Main+21.0%3,232 → 3,910
  7. 7Bard College+19.5%2,021 → 2,414
  8. 8New York University+16.8%24,539 → 28,663
  9. 9St Bonaventure University+16.0%1,735 → 2,012
  10. 10CUNY Lehman College+13.6%9,417 → 10,696

Sources:College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Fall Enrollment survey (distance education), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024About the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)

Top 10 and how it's ranked

Students pay much less

(in 2023–24 dollars), 2013–14 to 2023–24

Median college: −12.0% (91 colleges ranked)

  1. 1United Talmudical Seminary−45.9%$14,580 → $7,881
  2. 2Uta Mesivta of Kiryas Joel−43.1%$12,645 → $7,202
  3. 3Hobart William Smith Colleges−34.3%$51,977 → $34,170
  4. 4Utica University−31.1%$34,250 → $23,607
  5. 5Niagara University−28.9%$28,852 → $20,510
  6. 6Houghton University−27.3%$29,828 → $21,698
  7. 7Keuka College−26.8%$34,095 → $24,948
  8. 8Ithaca College−25.3%$47,180 → $35,266
  9. 9CUNY Bernard M Baruch College−25.1%$30,465 → $22,824
  10. 10Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences−24.4%$41,445 → $31,323
  11. 10Elmira College−24.4%$32,141 → $24,292

Sources:IPEDS Institutional Characteristics survey, 2013–14 to 2023–24;IPEDS Student Financial Aid survey, 2013–14 to 2023–24;College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2013 to Fall 2024;inflation: BLS CPI-U, school-year averagesAbout the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)

Top 10 and how it's ranked

Public research universities

New York's public R1 and R2 universities (Carnegie 2025), with their undergraduate change over the same window. No classification in the data means "flagship," so this is simply the state's public research universities.

How this was measured

  • Which colleges. Colleges with 300 or more undergraduates in both fall 2014 and fall 2024: 121 of 165 New York colleges. It's a , so colleges entering or leaving the data don't look like change.
  • Average total cost is an academic-year figure, one year behind fall: 2013–14 to 2023–24, after inflation.
  • Out-of-state shares are collected in even-numbered falls only; odd years are gaps, not zeros.
  • Totals and medians both appear because they can diverge: a state's total can fall more (or less) than its median college when its biggest colleges move differently.
  • No policy attribution. This page shows what changed, not why; a state's mix of public, private, and for-profit colleges, and its system policies, aren't broken out as causes.
  • First-years crossing state lines is a single snapshot, fall 2024, over campus-based colleges only: colleges that fall, for-profit colleges, and campuses that merged or split are left out. It's the newest fall the site's per-college home-state tables cover, not this page's ten-year window.

Sources:College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Admissions survey, Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Institutional Characteristics survey, 2014–15 to 2023–24;IPEDS Student Financial Aid survey, 2014–15 to 2023–24;IPEDS Fall Enrollment survey (part C, residence of first-time students), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;inflation: BLS CPI-U, school-year averagesAbout the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)