NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service ranked No.1 in urban policy in the U.S. News and World Report’s analysis of 268 graduate schools nationwide — marking its seventh consecutive year in the leading spot.
As a public affairs school, Wagner fell two spots to No. 11 and tied with Arizona State University, Princeton University, the University of Minnesota and the University of Texas, Austin. U.S. News’ rankings for all 12 speciality programs under public affairs — including urban policy, environmental policy and technology management — remained stagnant from last year, after the publication faced an “error” in curating the list of institutions to include on an updated list.
To formulate the rankings, the dean and one other representative from each school recommended up to 15 programs for their urban policy education, with each school’s place on the list representing how popular it was among peer institutions. Wagner also placed third for its health policy program, seventh for both public finance and nonprofit management and eighth in international global policy based on similar peer assessments.
To represent Wagner, dean Sherry Glied and associate dean Rajeev Dehejia participated in the surveying process.
“In many ways, it is ultimately a very important ranking,” Dehejia said in an interview with WSN. “There are other measures of the U.S. News’ rankings that are more quantitative, but all the affairs programs are peer assessments only. In many ways, that’s the most important thing.”
Wagner first topped the urban policy program rankings in 2019, overtaking the University of Southern California’s Price School of Public Policy. NYU students pursuing a master’s degree in urban planning can either concentrate on city and community planning — which focuses on aspects such as land laws and local policies — or international development, which employs a historical perspective to analyze decentralized governance and planning.
Mitchell Moss, an urban policy and planning professor at Wagner, attributed the program’s strength to its distinct position under a public service school. According to Wagner’s website, most other urban planning programs fall under a design or architecture school at peer institutions.
“Our focus is on how the public and nonprofit sector get things done — it’s not just on how they look and how they are designed physically,” Moss told WSN. “By being in a school of public service or public policy, our students get the benefit of taking courses which are very much essential to the success of planning today.”
Vanessa Deane, director of Wagner’s urban planning program, said in an interview with WSN that receiving an education in urban planning is an avenue for people to make a worthwhile impact amid a political climate characterized by a crackdown on environmental policies and organizations.
“Urban planning is a really exciting discipline — the ability to look at historic trends and how they’ve come to shape realities, and using that to inform the future is such an exciting profession,” Deane said. “I hope that through rankings like this, it helps increase the exposure of planning as a discipline … where you can have a real and lasting impact for the better.”
Contact Amelia Hernandez Gioia at agioia@nyunews.com.
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