The best hospitality and hotel management programs in the United States: a ranked list and how the rankings disagree

There is no shortage of lists of the best hospitality schools in America, and most of them are either a reprint of one ranking or a set of paid placements. This page does something different. It puts the three published rankings that cover American hospitality programs side by side, explains why they disagree, adds the one fact that can be compared across schools without a survey, which is how many hours of real work each degree requires, and then ranks ten schools and says what the ranking rests on. The general managers I interviewed for my books have the last word, because what they say about the degree is more useful than any of the lists.

Fees, deadlines, class sizes and acceptance rates change every year and are not given here. Each school’s site has them.

The fourteen schools

The schools covered are the ones that appear on at least one of the three rankings or that a student searching for an American hospitality degree will meet in the first hour: Cornell, UNLV, Penn State, Michigan State, Purdue, the University of Houston’s Hilton College, FIU’s Chaplin School, Boston University, NYU’s Tisch Center, Johnson & Wales, Cal Poly Pomona’s Collins College, Washington State, Virginia Tech and UCF’s Rosen College. Two have their own pages on this site, on Cornell and on UNLV.

Three rankings, three different questions

The QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026 for Hospitality and Leisure Management scores schools on academic reputation, employer reputation and citations per paper. Its 2026 top five are all Swiss private hotel schools, and UNLV at 6th is the first American entry. QS is the list luxury hotel recruiters in Europe and Asia are most likely to know.

CEOWORLD magazine’s Best Hospitality and Hotel Management Schools in the World for 2026, published in May 2026, rests on a survey of about 250,000 graduates, industry professionals, employers and recruiters across 124 territories, conducted between November 2025 and February 2026. Scores combine perceived global brand influence at 20 percent, recruiter responses at 20 percent, academic reputation at 20 percent, and employer feedback, job placement rate, admission eligibility and specialization at 10 percent each. The list is dominated by American departments, leaves out EHL, Glion, SHMS and Hotelschool The Hague, which are all in the QS top ten, and CEOWORLD itself says the list is not exhaustive. It is best read as a measure of how American employers and recruiters see American schools.

The ShanghaiRanking Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2025 for Hospitality and Tourism Management counts research output. Hong Kong Polytechnic University has been first on it for ten consecutive years. It rewards large university departments that publish a great deal, and it says nothing about the undergraduate classroom.

None of the three measures teaching, and none visits a campus. Here is where the fourteen fall.

Read across a row and the disagreements are plain. Michigan State is 3rd in the world on CEOWORLD and 42nd on QS. Purdue is 7th in the world on ShanghaiRanking for research and 67th on CEOWORLD. Cornell, the school that invented the hospitality degree, is 16th on QS, behind a Culinary Arts Academy and a Spanish business school, because QS’s reputation surveys are answered worldwide and the Swiss schools dominate them. UCF is 2nd on two lists and 27th on the third. Any single list would mislead a student; the three together describe the field.

The hours: the one fact that can be compared

Every serious American hospitality degree requires its students to work in the industry before graduating, and most of them count the requirement in hours. The figures are on the schools’ own pages, they do not depend on anyone’s opinion, and they tell a student how much of the degree will be spent in front of guests.

Two patterns are worth noticing. The schools with the hardest hour requirements, UNLV and Penn State at 1,000 and Cornell and Cal Poly Pomona at 800, are also the schools that do best across the three rankings. And the schools that do not publish a figure are not necessarily weaker in practice; Houston runs a branded full service hotel inside its own building. But a student comparing offers should ask every school for the number, and whether credit bearing internships count toward it, since UNLV’s rule that they do not is unusual and deliberate.

The top ten, and what it rests on

This ranking rests on three things, in order. First, recurrence: how many of the three published lists a school appears on and where, since a school that several independent measures notice is doing something. Second, a documented compulsory practice requirement on the school’s own pages, because that is what distinguishes a hospitality degree from a business degree. Third, documented facilities and employer base, such as a teaching hotel or a student run restaurant, and the length of the record. None of this measures teaching quality, which no ranking can. Where two schools are close, I say so.

1. University of Nevada, Las Vegas, William F. Harrah College of Hospitality. The only American school in the top 15 of all three lists: 6th on QS and first in the United States, 1st on CEOWORLD, 14th on ShanghaiRanking. A 1,000 hour work requirement that excludes credit bearing internships, a 93,500 square foot building a few blocks from the Strip whose founders include Caesars, MGM Resorts, Las Vegas Sands and Boyd Gaming, and the largest concentration of hospitality jobs in the country as the employer base. Teaching hotel administration since 1967. Full page.

2. Cornell University, Peter and Stephanie Nolan School of Hotel Administration. Founded in 1922, the first hospitality degree in the world, AACSB accredited and part of the SC Johnson College of Business since 2017. 16th on QS and 6th on CEOWORLD; absent from the research table. An 800 hour work requirement, a 153 room AAA Four Diamond teaching hotel where more than 200 students work, and an alumni list that runs to the founders of Burger King, Shake Shack and HVS. On recurrence alone UNLV is ahead; on accreditation, the teaching hotel and the length of the record, Cornell is the reference point every other school on this page measures itself against. The gap between first and second is small and the two schools are different in kind. Full page.

3. Penn State, School of Hospitality Management. On all three lists: 20th on QS, 4th on CEOWORLD, 12th on ShanghaiRanking. A 1,000 hour professional experience requirement that must be spread across at least two different jobs, which is a sensible rule no other school on this page has. Café Laura, a student run restaurant in the Mateer Building with capstone theme dinners. Hotel administration has been taught at University Park since 1937, according to the school’s history, and its Conti Professors have included Danny Meyer of Union Square Hospitality.

4. University of Central Florida, Rosen College of Hospitality Management. On all three lists and 2nd on two of them, CEOWORLD and ShanghaiRanking, with QS at 27th. The hospitality program dates from 1983 and the Rosen campus on Universal Boulevard in Orlando opened in January 2004 after a gift from the hotelier Harris Rosen, according to the college’s facts page; the same page gives 2,508 students in fall 2024 and says more than 1,000 students complete internships each semester. A 2010 university history records an 800 hour paid work requirement. It sits fourth rather than higher because the hour figure needs confirming and because the ShanghaiRanking position measures research, not the undergraduate degree; a student who confirms the current requirement with the college could reasonably move it up.

5. Washington State University, School of Hospitality Business Management. On all three lists: 39th on QS, 7th on CEOWORLD, 5th on ShanghaiRanking. Part of the AACSB accredited Carson College of Business, and the only American program on this page with a Swiss dual degree, three years in Brig with César Ritz Colleges and two six month internships, described on the college’s Switzerland program page. The program dates from 1932. The 1,000 hour internship figure comes from a 1997 article and should be confirmed.

6. Michigan State University, The School of Hospitality Business. 3rd on CEOWORLD and 42nd on QS; absent from the research table. Founded in 1927, which makes it the second oldest on this page after Cornell, with two required internships over four years and the Kellogg Center, built in 1947 as the school’s training ground. Hilton endowed a professorship here in 1989 and the Marriott Foundation supports the culinary lab. It ranks sixth rather than higher because its strength is concentrated on one list.

7. Virginia Tech, Howard Feiertag Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management. 14th on CEOWORLD and 8th on ShanghaiRanking; outside the QS top 50. A 400 hour field study requirement, the lowest documented figure on this page, offset by The Inn at Virginia Tech, a 147 room hotel and conference center where at least 100 students work at any time. The department was named in 2018 for Howard Feiertag, a hotel sales educator who held the certified hotel administrator credential, according to Virginia Tech News.

8. University of Houston, Conrad N. Hilton College of Global Hospitality Leadership. On all three lists but low on two: 38th on QS, 13th on ShanghaiRanking, 65th on CEOWORLD. Founded in 1969 with a gift from Conrad Hilton, the first hospitality school in Texas, and the only one on this page whose teaching hotel is a branded full service Hilton inside the college’s own building, with an 86 room original and a 70 room tower added, according to the university’s catalog and its name change release. Seven degree programs from bachelor to doctorate, with an undergraduate emphasis in wine and beverage studies. A compulsory practice requirement could not be confirmed on the pages read.

9. Purdue University, White Lodging-J.W. Marriott, Jr. School of Hospitality and Tourism Management. 7th on ShanghaiRanking for research and 3rd in the United States on the 2026 edition by the school’s own account; 67th on CEOWORLD; outside the QS top 50. Named in 2021 for the White Lodging founder Bruce White and, at his request, J.W. Marriott Jr., as the school’s history records. At least one internship is mandatory, and the LAUNCH immersion program with White Lodging puts students to work in the Union Club Hotel, which the school describes as the only student run Marriott Autograph Collection hotel in the world. The John Purdue Room fine dining restaurant and the Boiler Bistro are the other labs.

10. California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, The Collins College of Hospitality Management. 8th on CEOWORLD and on no other list. The first hospitality program in California, founded in 1973, with an 800 hour work requirement and The Restaurant at Kellogg Ranch, which students run for lunch and dinner, rotating through cook, server and bartender before leading the finance, marketing and reservations of the operation. The college’s history page traces its growth from a department to a college. It is tenth, and FIU is not in the ten, because Cal Poly Pomona publishes its hour requirement and its restaurant program in detail and FIU does not quantify its Industry Experience Requirement on the pages read; a reader who weighs FIU’s 23rd place on QS more heavily than that would reverse the two.

Four more worth knowing

Florida International University, Chaplin School of Hospitality and Tourism Management. 23rd equal on QS 2026 and third among American public universities on that list, according to FIU News; not on the other two lists. Founded in 1972 on the Biscayne Bay campus in North Miami, with a Bacardi Center of Excellence, a Wine Spectator restaurant management laboratory and a brewing science laboratory, and the South Beach Wine and Food Festival, co sponsored since 1997, which the school’s timeline says has raised more than $31 million for it and uses more than 1,200 student volunteers. A Marriott Tianjin China program has run since 2006. The strongest beverage specialism on this page.

Boston University, School of Hospitality Administration. 28th on CEOWORLD. Founded in 1981, with a BS, a BS in Hospitality and Communication and a Master of Management in Hospitality whose field experience runs with Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group, and a graduate collaboration with ESSEC in France. Work experience requirements are met through Boston internships with an international option.

New York University, Jonathan M. Tisch Center of Hospitality. 19th on CEOWORLD. Founded in 1995 within the School of Professional Studies and named for the chairman of Loews Hotels, who chairs the NYU International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference. A BS in Hotel and Tourism Management with concentrations in hotel development, marketing and revenue management, event management and tourism development, and two language courses required. The right school for a student who wants New York itself as the campus.

Johnson & Wales University. 11th on CEOWORLD. Founded in 1914 as a business school in Providence, Rhode Island, with culinary and hospitality programs from the early 1970s and a second campus in Charlotte; its alumni include Emeril Lagasse and Tyler Florence. It is better known for culinary arts than for hotel management and does not publish an hour requirement, which is why it is here rather than in the ten.

What the hoteliers in my books say about the degree

None of the general managers I interviewed names an American hospitality school as his or her alma mater, and several did not study hospitality at all. What they say is consistent, and it cuts across every row of the tables above. George Cozonis, then general manager of The Plaza Hotel in New York, studied hotel management and remembers what came next.

“After studying hotel management, I truly believed I would be hired as a general manager upon graduating. It was a wakeup call when, in my first job as a management trainee, I could barely keep up answering telephones at the reception desk.” George Cozonis, in A Wealth of Insight (2017)

Stephen Ansell, then general manager of Ararat Park Hyatt Moscow and now managing director for the Middle East and Africa at Hyatt, studied hospitality and then joined a corporate training program.

“After studying hospitality, I embarked on an international career by enrolling in a management training program with Hilton International in Munich, Germany. Looking back at all of my early management experiences, this is where I learned the most.” Stephen Ansell, in A Wealth of Insight (2017)

Krister Svensson, then general manager of The St. Regis Bangkok, who began as a steward in Stockholm, hires graduates and says what he looks for.

“When hiring, I look for a degree in hospitality, but by no means is this the only path to managerial responsibilities. I am a firm believer in working your way up in the industry, whether starting at the front-of-thehouse or the-back-of-the-house, in the kitchen or in the dining room. Not every luxury hotelier has an academic background, and not everyone needs one.” Krister Svensson, in A Wealth of Insight (2017)

Brian Gullbrants, then president of Wynn Las Vegas and Encore, who studied communications and came up through room service at The Ritz-Carlton, is the bluntest.

“Most college students who have just invested four years or more of their time, effort, and money into learning the industry want to move directly into a leadership role upon graduation. This is a big mistake and very dangerous in the longterm.” Brian Gullbrants, in A Wealth of Insight (2017)

“You simply cannot lead them without having their perspective.” Brian Gullbrants, in A Wealth of Insight (2017)

Set these against the hours table. A thousand hours at UNLV or Penn State, or eight hundred at Cornell or Cal Poly Pomona, is the industry’s own answer to Gullbrants and Svensson: the degree is designed so that the line level hourly job happens before the diploma, not after it.

How to use this page

Use the three rankings together and never one alone. Ask every school how many hours of work the degree requires and whether credit bearing internships count toward them. Then ask where last year’s graduates went, which no ranking records and every school knows. The pages on Cornell and UNLV go deeper on the two schools at the top of this list, and the guide to choosing a hospitality school sets the American schools beside the Swiss, Dutch and Asian ones.

Then read Chapter 2 of The Luxury of Attention, on the apprenticeship. Every leader in that book, with a degree or without one, spent years being shaped by someone better than them before they were trusted with a floor, and the chapter is about what those years give and what skipping them costs. The hours in the table above are where that apprenticeship can begin. The Luxury of Attention (2026), Chapter 2

Sources

• QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026, Hospitality and Leisure Management (reproduction)
• CEOWORLD magazine, Best Hospitality and Hotel Management Schools in the World for 2026
• ShanghaiRanking Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2025, Hospitality and Tourism Management (reproduction)
• PolyU SHTM, ShanghaiRanking 2026 news
• UNLV, “Harrah College of Hospitality retains #1 ranking”
• UNLV Harrah College of Hospitality, Work Experience requirement
• UNLV Harrah College of Hospitality, About
• Cornell Nolan School, History
• Cornell, BS Hotel Administration degree requirements
• Cornell Nolan School, The Statler Hotel
• Penn State SHM, History
• Penn State SHM, Professional Experience Requirement hours
• Wikipedia, Penn State School of Hospitality Management
• UCF Rosen College, Facts
• UCF News, “A hospitality program like no other: a brief history of UCF’s Rosen College”
• WSU Carson College, Switzerland program
• WSU News, “WSU Hospitality Program Celebrates 65th” (1997)
• MSU Broad College, School of Hospitality Business
• Wikipedia, Michigan State University School of Hospitality Business
• Virginia Tech News, department named for Howard Feiertag (2018)
• Virginia Tech News, students at The Inn at Virginia Tech (2014)
• University of Houston, Hilton College name change (2022)
• University of Houston catalog, About Hilton College
• Purdue HHS, “A Brief History” of the school
• Purdue HTM Career Center, Internships
• Cal Poly Pomona Collins College, History
• Cal Poly Pomona Collins College, BS Hospitality Management
• FIU Chaplin School, Legacy timeline
• FIU News, QS 2026 results
• Boston University, School of Hospitality Administration
• Boston University SHA, 40th anniversary release (2021)
• ESSEC, BU and ESSEC collaboration
• NYU SPS, Jonathan M. Tisch Chair announcement (2021)
• NYU SPS, BS in Hotel and Tourism Management curriculum
• Johnson & Wales University, History
• Wikipedia, Johnson & Wales University