cuny or suny or nyu?

Depends.. NYU is clearly the most recognized and academic of the schools but you will end up paying tons (my cousin went there for 1 year and ended up $40grand in the hole before she left to go to Rutgers). In contrast, SUNY Binghamton is one of the finest schools in the northeast (known as one of the public Ivy’s) and would cost you about $4,000/year if you live in NY. I’m not a fan of the CUNY schools but Hunter, Baruch, and John Jay are great depending on what you’re studying. They are also the cheapest of the three. Other great SUNY’s and CUNY’s – Buffalo, Stony Brook, CUNY Graduate Center (for grad study), Brooklyn.

No doubt that NYU is the premeir college in NY. It is hard to get into and it cost a ton. SUNY schools are a bit better than CUNY schools, for Stonybrook and Binghamton are two SUNY schools with a lot of credentials and they have low cost tuiton. CUNY schools are located in the city and Hunter, City, and Queens College are know best for their science majors and liberal arts, but overall if you could pay for NYU, that is the best school to go to. It has many majors and its campus is spread around lower Manhattan.

NYU is a private university and is one of the best universities in the US.

SUNY is a system of state universities located in several locations. Several SUNY schools are very good and some are not so great. However, New York does not have the best state university system — and the best SUNY is only ranked #86 by US News (see the link below). In contrast, California has seven public universities rated higher than the best SUNY.

CUNY — the City University of New York is not very highly regarded.

I talked with a friend who came from NY and we decided NYU is the best bet, albeit a little expensive. SUNY schools are also fantastic, they’re like the equivalent of UC’s. CUNY is like a Cal State, not bad but not to great either. All of those schools are in New York though so I’d go to whichever one fits me.