Enrollment is up this fall at the City University of New York for the first time in three years — a sign it is bouncing back from the pandemic era, the university’s chancellor said Tuesday.
Freshman enrollment rose more than 4% this fall, with transfers up nearly 7% and more students attending full time than ever, CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez said in his State of the University Address at Hunter College’s Silberman School of Social Work in East Harlem.
“I am sure everyone here is well aware that the pandemic hit CUNY — as it did universities and colleges across the country — really, really hard,” he said. “But we have a reason to believe that we have turned a corner.”
Rodriguez detailed what New Yorkers can expect the rest of the decade to look like at the university, including a postpandemic expansion of online programming and long-awaited upgrades to dilapidated school buildings.
CUNY Online, which launched in 2021, currently has 175 fully virtual degree programs — up from 82 in 2021 — with 30 in development and plans to double the number of online certificate and degree programs by 2030.
“A key part of our strategy is to meet students where they are,” Rodriguez said. “We will do this by building our online offerings and by exploring new models of instruction and scheduling to maximize access and flexibility.”
More immediately, CUNY is addressing “flaws” in the system for transfer students — among them a problem with some students losing credits toward their major when they switch from an associate’s degree to a four-year program.
The chancellor described it as “an important area where we have fallen short of the vision of a fully integrated university” and said students will be able to transfer without losing credits by the end of the next year. He estimated that will save students an average of four credits and $1,220 in tuition.
Rodriguez gave his address a day after it was announced that CUNY would waive its $65 application fee during October for seniors at city public schools.
In his address, he also touted the school’s record research funding milestone, anti-discrimination work and career development programming. He emphasized the role of paid internships and predicted CUNY would triple the number of students partaking in paid internships over the next seven years.
“We want more employers to turn to CUNY campuses as fertile ground for recruitment,” Rodriguez said. “We need you. And more importantly, you also need us.”
The chancellor also gave an update on CUNY’s five-year, $5.5 billion capital project to upgrade campus facilities. Forty-three projects were completed last year, 180 projects are under construction and 300 are in the design phase. The upgrades include roof repairs and HVAC fixes, among other items.
The university’s strategic plan previously found that just 8% of CUNY’s 300 buildings are considered “in good repair.”
Rodriguez also committed to transparency as CUNY moves forward postpandemic. He said the university will publish its goals every year and share progress reports on its website “on an ongoing basis.”
“We have been aspirational,” he said, “and we will be accountable.”
