Choose Your Path and Plan

The nationally accredited MFA program offers varied and extensive opportunities for graduate study in a unique setting. Our location is just 90 minutes north of New York City in the historic Hudson River Valley, allowing access to cutting edge artists, historians, critics and curators. The campus features expansive facilities, private and semi-private secure studios, and extensive computer labs and digital fabrication technologies. Additional exhibition spaces complement the prestigious Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art.

The intensive and selective two-year MFA program, the largest in the SUNY system, includes specializations in Ceramics, Metals, Painting and Drawing, Photography & Related Media, Printmaking, and Sculpture. The Art Department faculty members are dedicated teachers and practicing artists with significant national reputations. SUNY New Paltz is regularly included among the best schools in the Northeast and its Metals program has consistently been ranked among the best in the nation.

Financial assistance and tuition waivers are available. Students interested in a career in academia and pedagogical forms of collaboration have opportunities to assist and frequently teach their own undergraduate course. Emphasis is placed on disciplinary rigor and interdisciplinary scholarship guided by committed conceptual inquiry. Our graduate program is more than a collection of students, faculty, and facilities; we are a dynamic learning community engaged in and encouraging of authentic research, personal growth, and a professionally sustainable art practice.