Adelphi University is a nationally ranked doctoral research university located in Garden City, New York, with learning centers in Manhattan, the Hudson Valley, Suffolk County, and online. With a 70-year history, Adelphi University’s School of Social Work has earned recognition as a 2023 U.S. News & World Report Best Grad School for Social Work.
Adelphi’s Hudson Valley Master of Social Work (MSW) program has locations in Poughkeepsie and Middletown, serving students throughout the Mid-Hudson Valley, and is the only social work graduate school in the region. University-wide, 100% of social work undergraduates are employed or in graduate school within one year of graduation.
Tuition for the full-time, two-year MSW program is approximately $80,000. Absent financial aid and scholarship support, students interested in a career in social work may be less inclined to take on significant student loan debt for a field in which their income may be more modest (at least initially). The Adelphi School of Social Work has recently reduced tuition, increased scholarships, expanded internship partnerships, and initiated several specialized fellowships with varying levels of financial support to address the financial challenges of current and prospective students, as well as workforce demand. Adelphi also offers a special program for students who work full-time in health services that allows them to remain fully employed while earning their MSW degree and to use their job setting as their field placement. In addition, Adelphi now offers an online program in which tuition is 30% lower than on-campus.
In 2022, the Dyson Foundation renewed a multi-year grant to Adelphi University’s Hudson Valley School of Social Work for graduate student scholarships to provide access to and support the professionalization of the human services workforce in the region. The majority of Adelphi’s Hudson Valley MSW graduates work in health and social service organizations in the region, including many Dyson Foundation grantees. Community service agencies, especially the largest organizations, have faced significant challenges filling critical social work positions, and better educational pipelines into those positions – such as those provided by Adelphi – are essential.