CUNY Community College Report

A new report, Rising to the Challenge: Exemplary Community Colleges in a Revitalized City University of New York, identifies some of the challenges CUNY’s community colleges face in a new, fully integrated university system. The report was prepared by the Board of Trustees’ Committee on Community Colleges.

“We have never had a committee on community colleges before,” said Herman Badillo, Chairman of the Board. “The committee just started one year ago and to have such a complete report in such a short period of time is a major achievement.” He added that there will be opportunities for all segments of the CUNY community to add their ideas.

CUNY’s six community colleges—Borough of Manhattan, Bronx, Hostos, Kingsborough, LaGuardia and Queensborough—enroll 53,000 students in their associate degree programs, 10,000 in non-degree programs and 88,000 in their continuing education programs.

Students who attend CUNY’s community colleges can transfer with credits intact to one of the eleven senior colleges to degrees. To ensure that this process works seamlessly, the report urges community colleges to articulate more closely with CUNY’s senior colleges on course curricula and to establish and support cooperative initiatives among the community colleges to expand the range of courses available.

It urges the University to remove administrative impediments for students to enroll in courses, and, if qualified, to enroll in web-based distance learning courses from any CUNY college. The report also recommends the development of a range of non-traditional offerings to keep pace with technology and population shifts.

Over the past ten years, funding provided to CUNY’s community colleges has not kept pace with inflation nor with growth in enrollment, declining by $9 million (6.4 percent after inflation). The report urges the Chancellery and the Board of Trustees to seek additional state and city funding for the community colleges to restore lost resources and to provide enough funding to implement the report’s recommendations effectively.

It also called for developing a system that links new funding with student outcomes and campus performance.

For copies of the report, visit www.cuny.edu.

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