Colleges and universities across Central New York

Central New York has a college campus in each of the eight core counties, plus a research university, a medical university and a set of small hospital-based nursing schools. This guide covers 22 schools, from Syracuse to Oneonta, for high school students building a list, parents comparing costs and distances, adults going back for a degree or a nursing license, and anyone new to the region who wants to know what the campuses are and where they sit.

The schools are grouped by area. Each entry gives the type of school, the enrollment, where the campus is and one or two things that set the school apart. Enrollment counts are fall 2024 headcounts, the most recent year of federal data available for every school on the list, so they compare evenly across public and private campuses.

Syracuse and Onondaga County

The largest concentration of students in CNY is on University Hill, just east of downtown Syracuse. Syracuse University was founded in 1870 and is a private research university with an R1 Carnegie designation. The university counted 22,589 students in fall 2024, 15,957 of them undergraduates, spread across 13 schools and colleges. The main campus address is 900 S. Crouse Ave.

Right next door at 1 Forestry Drive is SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, known locally as ESF. The college opened in 1911 as the New York State College of Forestry, joined SUNY in 1948 and took the current name in 1972. ESF had 2,757 students in fall 2024. Some of the teaching happens far from Syracuse: the Ranger School in Wanakena has trained foresters in the Adirondacks since 1912.

Down the hill at 750 E. Adams St., SUNY Upstate Medical University is a graduate-heavy school with four colleges: the Norton College of Medicine and the colleges of Nursing, Health Professions and Graduate Studies. Fall 2024 enrollment was 1,341, of whom 166 were undergraduates. Upstate describes itself as the region’s largest employer, with more than 13,000 people on staff.

On the east side of the city, Le Moyne College sits on a 160-acre campus at 1419 Salt Springs Road. The address says Syracuse, but most of the campus lies in the Town of DeWitt. Jesuits founded the college in 1946. Le Moyne enrolled 3,091 students in fall 2024, and the Dolphins moved up to NCAA Division I in the Northeast Conference in July 2023.

The biggest school in the county after Syracuse University is Onondaga Community College, on a 280-acre campus at 4585 W. Seneca Turnpike on Onondaga Hill. OCC had 8,537 students in fall 2024. Onondaga County sponsors the college, which opened in 1962 and has run a second location in Liverpool since 1999. The campus has residence halls and 19 varsity teams.

Utica, Rome and the Mohawk Valley

Utica has three larger campuses within a short drive of each other. Utica University, the former Utica College, was founded in 1946 and is a private university at 1600 Burrstone Road. Fall 2024 enrollment was 3,627, with 2,329 undergraduates and close to 1,300 graduate students. The university’s programs lean toward health care, business and education, and Utica also runs an accelerated nursing program in Florida.

Founded in 1966 as the Upper Division College at Utica/Herkimer/Rome, SUNY Polytechnic Institute is marking a 60th anniversary through 2026. The campus is in the Town of Marcy with a Utica mailing address, 100 Seymour Road. SUNY Poly enrolled 2,733 students in fall 2024 across four colleges: Arts and Sciences, Business, Engineering, and Health Sciences.

The largest of the three is Mohawk Valley Community College, with 5,940 students in fall 2024. MVCC opened on October 14, 1946, with 53 students, most of them veterans, and the college says it was New York’s first community college. The main campus on Sherman Drive in Utica dates to 1960 and was designed by Edward Durell Stone. A second campus on Floyd Avenue in Rome, in the former Oneida County Hospital, has been open since 1974 and finished a $30 million renovation in 2017.

Southwest of Utica, Hamilton College sits on College Hill above the Village of Clinton, in the Town of Kirkland. The private liberal arts college had 2,031 students in fall 2024, all undergraduates. Hamilton uses an open curriculum, which means no core courses or distribution requirements, and the campus covers more than 1,300 acres.

East along the Thruway, Herkimer County Community College, which goes by Herkimer College, has been on Reservoir Road in Herkimer since 1966. The college had 1,971 students in fall 2024. Students who need to study from home have options here: the college lists 21 online associate degrees and four online certificates. Students who do live on campus stay in one of three apartment complexes.

Downtown Utica also has an art school. At the Munson arts campus, 310 Genesee St., Pratt Munson lets Pratt Institute students begin a bachelor of fine arts in Utica before finishing in Brooklyn. The program is winding down (see Good to know).

Madison County

Colgate and Hamilton are easy to mix up. Colgate University is in the Village of Hamilton in Madison County; Hamilton College is in Clinton, in Oneida County. Colgate was founded in 1819 and enrolled 3,211 students in fall 2024, almost all of them undergraduates. The university lists 57 majors and an 8-to-1 student-faculty ratio.

About 30 miles southeast of Syracuse, SUNY Morrisville began in 1908 as the New York State School of Agriculture at Morrisville and was a founding member of SUNY in 1948. The college had 2,186 students in fall 2024. Agriculture is still central: students work in a dairy complex and an equine rehabilitation center on campus. Morrisville also runs a Norwich campus in Roger W. Follett Hall, next to the Eaton Center in downtown Norwich, for Chenango County students.

Oswego and Cayuga counties

On the Lake Ontario shore at 7060 State Route 104, SUNY Oswego had 6,715 students in fall 2024, 5,517 of them undergraduates. The college has been teaching for more than 160 years and fields 22 NCAA Division III teams. Oswego also holds classes at a downtown Syracuse location near Clinton Square, which is useful for working adults who live in Onondaga County. Plan for lake-effect snow from late fall into spring.

Opened in 1953 as Auburn Community College, Cayuga Community College took the Cayuga name in 1975. The main campus is at 197 Franklin St. in Auburn, and a second campus is at 11 River Glen Drive in Fulton. The college calls itself the community college for both Cayuga and Oswego counties, which puts a two-year campus inside Oswego County. Fall 2024 enrollment was 3,580.

Cortland and Dryden

Teacher training and health and physical education programs are what SUNY Cortland is best known for, and the college now lists 68 majors. Fall 2024 enrollment was 6,938, including 5,911 undergraduates, which makes the Red Dragons the largest SUNY four-year campus in this guide by headcount.

Just over the Tompkins County line, Tompkins Cortland Community College, called TC3, has been on North Street in Dryden since 1974. The college opened in 1968 in a former Groton high school building with 180 students and had 4,958 in fall 2024. TC3 also runs extension centers in Ithaca and Cortland and has on-campus housing.

Oneonta

Founded in 1889 as the Oneonta Normal School, SUNY Oneonta now sits on a 250-acre campus on Ravine Parkway. The college had 5,337 students in fall 2024. SUNY Oneonta also has a 276-acre College Camp north of town and runs the Cooperstown Graduate Program in museum studies.

Also in Oneonta, at One Hartwick Drive, Hartwick College traces the school’s roots to a seminary founded in 1797. The private college enrolled 1,097 undergraduates in fall 2024. The college lists 2026-27 tuition at $23,500 a year, with room and board at $16,500. Laurel Bongiorno was named the 13th president, with a start date of July 1, 2026.

Nursing schools

Three hospital-affiliated colleges in CNY train registered nurses through two-year associate degrees. Two of them have partnership routes for students who want a bachelor’s degree later.

• St. Joseph’s College of Nursing is at 206 Prospect Ave. in Syracuse, part of St. Joseph’s Health. The college runs weekday and evening-weekend RN programs and a dual-degree partnership. Fall 2024 enrollment was 313.
• Pomeroy College of Nursing at Crouse Hospital moved in early 2023 from the Marley Education Building on University Hill to the Crouse Medical Center at 5000 Brittonfield Parkway, East Syracuse, in the Town of DeWitt. The school had 173 students in fall 2024 and counts more than 6,000 graduates.
• St. Elizabeth College of Nursing is at 2215 Genesee St. in Utica and is an affiliate of the Mohawk Valley Health System, with clinical placements at Wynn Hospital. The college held the 120th commencement on May 16, 2026, graduating 57 nurses, and offers a pathway to a bachelor’s degree through SUNY Poly.

Upstate Medical University’s College of Nursing, listed above, is the place to look for graduate nursing degrees in Syracuse.

Campus museums open to everyone

Two campuses have museums open to the public. The Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College is free and open to everyone, Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the academic year. The museum closes for the summer; visitors park outside the entrance or behind the Kennedy Center for Theatre and Studio Arts. In Oneonta, the Yager Museum of Art and Culture at Hartwick holds about 20,000 objects, a collection that started with Willard Yager’s 1929 bequest. Check with the college for visiting hours before you go.

Good to know

These items were checked as of October 2, 2026.

• Two longtime colleges are gone. Cazenovia College closed in 2023, and the campus is being reused by Madison County, the Town of Cazenovia and a private athletic center, according to Spectrum News 1. Wells College in Aurora closed at the end of the spring 2024 semester after 156 years, as WSKG reported.
• Pratt Institute announced in July 2026 that the Pratt Munson partnership will end in June 2028. Students who start in 2027 will spend only the first year in Utica before moving to Brooklyn.
• St. Joseph’s College of Nursing has an open house on October 18, 2026, and Pomeroy College of Nursing has a fall open house on Saturday, October 24, from 10 a.m. to noon. Check each school’s site to register.
• Enrollment figures are fall 2024 headcounts reported to the U.S. Department of Education and published in College Navigator, which also compares net price and graduation rates.

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