Public Administration at CUNY Bernard M Baruch College

Baruch's Public Administration graduates start behind their peers—earning $37,792 in the first year puts them in just the 25th percentile among New York programs—but the program offers something increasingly rare: extremely low debt. At $13,250, graduates carry about half the debt of typical NY public administration students ($16,541) and well below the national median ($23,626).

The earnings picture improves meaningfully over time, with graduates seeing a 31% jump to nearly $50,000 by year four. However, even with this growth, they're still earning less than what peers at Syracuse ($53,912) or even CUNY's John Jay College ($48,881) make earlier in their careers. This matters for an anxious parent because your child will spend their early-to-mid twenties earning below what they could elsewhere, though the debt-to-earnings ratio of 0.35 means they won't be drowning in payments during that period.

The trade here is straightforward: accept lower earnings in exchange for minimal debt burden. For a student committed to public service (where salaries are compressed anyway) or planning graduate school, this could work. But if your child wants to maximize early career earnings in public administration, other CUNY campuses deliver better outcomes, and the admission selectivity here suggests your student might have those options.