Parsons School for Design

Parsons School of Design is a private art and design school in New York City, founded in 1896 and named for educator Frank Alvah Parsons. Since 1970 it has been a college of The New School. Its defining fact is that it is a specialist design school in Manhattan, with a long-standing campus in Paris.

Instruction is organized through schools of fashion; art, media and technology; constructed environments; and design strategies. Graduate work is concentrated in fashion, interior and lighting design, architecture, design and technology, photography, and transdisciplinary design. Studios and live projects with New York's garment, media, and product industries structure much of the teaching.

Parsons enrolls about 5,000 students within The New School, including a large share of international students from more than 100 countries. Faculty are working designers, architects, and critics. Alumni include fashion designers Donna Karan, Marc Jacobs, and Tom Ford.

Graduate degrees are mainly studio master's awards (MFA, MPS, MArch, MA) built around critiques, internships, and a thesis or major studio rather than a large doctoral culture. The calendar follows the U.S. semester system, with fashion programs keyed to industry cycles. Students work in Greenwich Village and the Fashion District, using the city as the studio.

In the Grad School Navigator directory, Parsons School for Design lists 4 graduate programs across 4 subjects, all of them master's programs, with the widest choice in business & management, communication, media & journalism and environmental design.