Best Nursing Schools in NYC: The Straight Facts

NYC is one of the most lucrative cities in the world for a registered nurse. Rates for RNs routinely hit over $100 dollars an hour. Even inexperienced nurses who have no real world experience are going to start at a salary of close to $100,000 in NYC.

Even nurses who don’t go to the best nursing schools will find work at a non-profit, nursing home, or government run facility and make 70-80k a year right out of school.

Because of these amazing salaries, there are many people who graduate high schools and want to become nurses. The city is flooded with nursing schools. Some of them are better than others, and it is important to know the rankings before you chose a school.

The end result of any nursing school is going to be a nursing degree. Then, as long as the nursing student can pass their licensing exam (which are extremely easy and have an almost 100 percent pass rate) they will find immediate work in a NYC hospital or government run clinic.

However, some nursing schools are better perceived than others. This is obviously important if you’re a serious nursing student who wants to work in a prestigious hospital or for a nice clinic. If you go to a lower tiered nursing school you will still make 100k+ soon after graduating, but the elite hospitals and clinics won’t review your resume.

It’s really quite simple. If a elite dermatology clinic that serves celebrities and wealthy is hiring a nurse, and the decision is between someone who went to NYU or Columbia and a nurse who went to an online nursing school or a lower tiered one, then there’s no decision to be made. The NYU or Columbia nursing student will always be chosen.

Let’s review what exactly is meant by the different tiers of nursing schools.

The 3 Tiers of Nursing Schools: Which Are The Best

This is not an official ranking, but it’s well understood within the NYC nursing world to be accurate. Nurse recruiters immediately look to see what school a nurse went to. If they are recruiting for a high end clinic or hospital, and the nurse did not go to either NYU or Columbia, then it’s highly unlikely that the recruiters will work with them.

Unfortunately, nursing schools are not hard to get into and the standard of nurses who graduate from Tier 2 and Tier 3 does not often align with professionalism.

Thankfully there are many, many nursing jobs in NYC: Most Hospitals, Public Health Clinics, Private Nursing Agencies, Home Visiting Agencies, Non-Profits and Schools.

Recruiters who work on those roles don’t care where the nurse went to school because these roles are short term and only require a valid nursing license.

The first tier of nursing schools located in NYC are the elite schools: NYU and Columbia. These are also two of the best schools in NYC. The other good schools in NYC such as Fordham and Juliard do not have nursing schools.

The students who end up at tier 1 nursing schools tend to be good high school students who are treating their nursing school education as a priority.

The tier two nursing schools are schools that are still good colleges for dedicated students that might not have the grades or extra curriculars to get into Columbia or NYU. These schools are still very good and the top of the classes in these schools are still able to get hospital jobs upon graduation:

Wagner University Nursing School in Staten Island is a perfect example of a Tier 2 nusring school that is right on the cusp of Tier 1. A good student from Wagner Nursing who has an excellent record will be able to graduate and get a Hospital job.

Also important to notice is that Tier 2 schools are all real colleges. Wagner College has a real school, not just a nursing school. Much like Tier 1 Schools, Tier 2 schools are connected with legitimate schools of study.

The last tier, the tier 3 nursing schools. These include schools like Toru , NYC College of Technology, and Monroe as well as the every popular online Nursing schools like Chamberlin, Helene Fund, and

Tier One Best Nursing Schools in NYC

• Columbia University School of Nursing
• NYC School of Nursing

The two best nursing schools in NYC are Columbia and NYU. It makes sense because these are also two of the best regular colleges.

While nursing school is not the same as someone who goes to college and gets a traditional college degree, the fact that NYU Nursing School and Columbia Nursing School are tied into real colleges (Universities in this case) helps.

These schools are competitive and the caliber of nurse going there will be significantly better. You are not likely to find the classes filled with LPN’s and CNAs who do not have a classically college career path. Returning students and adults who become nurses through a medical professional career path are not likely to be nursing students in NYU or Columbia.

If you’re looking to be a nurse at NYU Hospital or Columbia Hospital, or even one of the other prestigious hospitals like Cornell, then these are the best options.

Tier Two Nursing Schools in NYC

Tier two nursing schools are those schools that are still affiliated with real colleges that have traditional courses of study. These schools include Wagner, Hunter, Lehman, and The College of Mt. Saint Vincent. Outside of NYC, nearby on Long Island you’ll have places like Adelphi.

• Wagner College of Nursing
• CSM Nursing School
• Lehman School of Nursing

Nurses who graduate from these tier two schools are going to find work in hospital cohorts. It will not be as easy as when a nurse from NYU or Columbia graduates, but it will certainly allow the nurse to stand a better chance than if she was to arrive from Chamberlin or some other online nursing school.

Tier Three Nursing Schools in NYC

The last tier of nursing schools are the schools that are for profit and have a more relaxed system in place to allow nursing students admittance.

These schools operate as a means for nurses who might not have been interested in nursing as a career path originally, but have made a pivot later on in life to become nurses.

There is less of a rigorous attention to academics in many of the nursing schools around the country that operate in the tier 3 sector.  

Many of these schools are going to accept older students who worked as LPNs and see the high salary that nurses make and apply to school. Other nursing students are coming from retail work, or perhaps they are immigrants who came to the US and want to make a career for themselves but have no formal education. These are all people for whom studying at a tier three school would be a good choice.

The benefit of these nursing schools in the tier three sector is that they are great for working people. If you are working in Target or a local supermarket, and want to go to nursing school, a Tier 3 school is your best bet. Not only do they all offer very attractive government financial aid programs but they offer night classes, online classes, and flexible classes for working people.

Some of the schools on this list include:

• Medgar Evers College
• Touro University
• NY City College of Technology
• SUNY Downstate
• Chamberlin School of Nursing

Most of the nurses who graduate from these schools will find work in Government run clinics, VA hospitals, City hospitals such as Bellevue and Lincoln, as well as working per diem for the NYC School System.

The work is not as glamorous, but they pay is quite good. The plain truth is that once you have a nursing degree from any school, the job openings are endless. There are many different side hustles that nurses can work and all of them will provide people with a huge ammount of financial oppertunies.

In NYC, there are multiple city hospitals that are always hiring Per Diem, and they do not care where you went to school. They are not the best hospitals, but they are always busy and always hiring.

Also, there are daily per diem openings for nurses to give shots, take temperatures, and monitor homeless individuals and mentally ill residents of public shelter and housing.