Education

School districts Albany High School

In Albany, Rensselaer, Saratoga, and Schenectady counties there are 54 public school districts, each of which is under the umbrella of one of four Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) in the area: Capital Region BOCES, Questar III (Rensselaer-Columbia-Greene BOCES), Washington-Saratoga-Warren-Hamilton-Essex BOCES, or Hamilton-Fulton-Montgomery BOCES. Some of these districts cross county borders since school district boundaries are independent of town and county borders. The smallest district by student enrollment is North Greenbush Common School District, with 20 students in 2006 and the largest school district is Shenendehowa Central School District, with 9,745 students in the end of the 2008 school year.

Colleges and universities

Two college buildings representing the past and the future, the Nott built in 1879 and EMPAC in 2008

Nott Memorial at Union College Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at RPI Main article: Colleges and universities in New York's Capital District

The colleges and universities of the Capital District have a long and distinguished heritage. Founded in 1795, Union College has had two US Presidents attend (Chester A. Arthur and Jimmy Carter). Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy is the oldest continually existing technical university in the English-speaking world. Albany Law, Albany College of Pharmacy, Sage College of Albany, and Albany Medical Center (which consists of Albany Medical Center Hospital and the Albany Medical College) are independent of each other but all share one campus as part of the University Heights Association, in Albany. Also in the Capital District are two Catholic schools, Siena College, a school in the Francisican tradition located in Loudenville, and St. Rose College, founded by the Sisters of St. Joseph in the Pine Hills section of Albany. By far the largest and most important educational institution in the Capital District is The University at Albany, one of the four major university centers of the State University of New York, also located in Albany. It has an enrollment of over 17,500 students from more than 100 nations at the graduate and undergraduate levels. Students can choose from 111 undergraduate majors and minors and 120-plus graduate programs. Many of these programs are nationally ranked, among them criminal justice, information technology, public administration, social welfare and sociology. UAlbany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering ranks number one in the world.