Earn a Best-Value Education

The School of Architecture and Planning is a distinguished professional school within a leading public research university. We offer nationally accredited degrees in architecture and urban planning, including the only fully accredited Master of Architecture in the SUNY system. Our faculty members are boundary-breaking scholars and practitioners – the top in their fields. Our nationally ranked research-based curriculum is intensively hands-on and closely linked to practice. We also feature state-of-the-art facilities and a “city-studio” (Buffalo) known worldwide for its architecture and urban design. 

Here in Buffalo, you’ll gain a head start in today’s innovation-driven planning and design professions...

...without burdensome student debt.

Our tuition is a fraction of the cost of a private college or university of comparable quality. UB is also among the nation’s best universities for graduating students with the least amount of debt. Our reputation for value is recognized year after year as being among the best in the nation by Princeton Review, Kiplinger’s, U.S. News & World Report and other leading publications. And, most importantly, by our students.

Listed among Kiplinger's 100 Best College Values, UB is the only public research university in the northeast with accredited architecture and planning programs. This places the School of Architecture and Planning in an elite peer group with the University of Florida (top-ranked in the south), University of California, Berkeley (top ranked in the west), and the University of Michigan (top-ranked in the Midwest). A separate, independent review of comparable public universities in the U.S. offering the professional Master of Architecture degree ranks UB tuition among the lowest for non-resident students, and in the bottom half for in-state residents [1]. 

The School of Architecture and Planning, steeped in a tradition of experimentation, offers one of the country’s strongest programs for research in architecture and planning. In 2015, the school generated over $4 million in research on topics as diverse as inclusive design, food systems planning and construction robotics. This level of research placed us among the top three schools of architecture and planning in the prestigious American Association of Universities.

Our faculty members are pioneers in their fields – prolific scholars and innovative practitioners. Among them is one of the world’s greatest known pioneers in inclusive design and a groundbreaking member of the national food systems planning movement. Other faculty members have earned national awards for work on new facades and building technologies, climate change resilience, and urban plans that now undergird Buffalo’s urban renaissance. They are Fellows of the AIA, SUNY Distinguished Faculty, and winners of the Dale Prize in Urban Planning. 

• Scholarships and Fellowships
• Tuition Payment Plan
• Employment and Internships
• Educational Loans

[1] Based on a comparison of 2015-16 tuition and required fees of all public universities in the American Association of Universities, and all public institutions (AAU and non-AAU) in New York State. Source: UB Office of Institutional Analysis.