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Though these days they often gets overshadowed by NYU and Columbia, New York City is home to a large and illustrious group of institutions of higher learning. One of the greatest of those institutions is easily The City University of New York (CUNY). Though its reputation has been tarnished over the years it is still the largest urban university in the United States - 11 senior colleges, 6 community colleges, a graduate school, a law school and a med school all located in the five boroughs. The only bigger university systems in terms of enrollment are the California State University system and SUNY (which is a separate system from CUNY). CUNY also has one of the highest numbers of nobel laureate alumni (12) of any public university.
Which is why it is nice to see, in the aftermath of the bickering over wether or not to close open admissions to the system's senior colleges, that each incoming class at CUNY looks better and smarter.
The number of "A" students considering CUNY colleges is a whopping 59.7 percent higher than in 2000, when the university tightened its admission policy by phasing out open enrollment and eliminating remedial courses at its four-year institutions.Looking farther back, the number of "A" graduates admitted is 83.9 percent higher than in 1990.
Meanwhile there were 9,257 applicants with GPAs of at least 85 admitted to CUNY - a 9.6 percent jump over last year and 75 percent higher than in 1990.
We think this uptick is fantastic. With the price of education skyrocketing, giving smart kids a means to stay in town and to give back to their city doesn't hurt either. And $4,000 a year seems pretty reasonable to us. Plus, if you go to the Honors College its free! Go CUNY!
Detail from photo by ShellySon flickr.
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This article is really silly since it does not mentioned if any of these bright kids are matriculated to CUNY. I am assuming since the Post article did not report those numbers that they must be really low.
I don't know if that's a fair assumption to make Jean. Just the fact that such an increase in the quality of applicants has occured is interesting, I think. If they're seeing an uptick of applications for the local science schools (Stuy, Bronx Sci, Brooklkyn Tech), which the Post article says they are, schools which have a limit on the number of school their students can apply to (it was seven at Stuy when I was there) that says something good about the state/reputation of CUNY.
Love the crack reporting on academic standards in which the writer makes multiple spelling mistakes.
There are now very big incentives for top students at Stuyvesant and Bronx Science to attend CCNY, and other CUNY schools. Free college and spending money vs 40-50k a year is quite a deal.
I've got a PhD from the CUNY Graduate Center, and while my program is rated among the Top 10 nationally, few people outside academie understand where I studied for nearly a decade. My grandmother still thinks I went to NYU! (but I've got almost no debt from grad school, unlike my NYU colleagues) Go, CUNY!
I don't know where the author got his information, but there hasn't been open enrollment in CUNY in 40 years.
To all of you who keep saying $4K a year isn't much: I put myself through Hunter all 4 years, working full time 6 days a week and attending classes up until late evenings every weekday. That barely left time to sleep, eat or study. I made pretty much minimum wage the entire 4 years and with no supportive parents, I lived on my own so I had to worry about rent, food, etc. To top this off my minimum wage job provided no health insurance so I was constantly in fear of getting sick or hurt. I would get to a point where I would finally be able to catch up with the $4K I just paid and start saving the $4K I needed for the following semester. I always worrried about falling behind on savings because this didn't even cover books and other school related expenses. Adding insult to injury was the fact that I didn't qualify for tuition assistance. My senior year I simply could not keep up and took out a student loan which I'm almost finished paying off--I finally graduated in 2001. My blood, sweat and tears went into my diploma and while I'm happy with the way things turned out (I now have a great job and I'm financially stable), $4K a year is a very BIG deal for some people. Sadly I was not the only student dealing with my education this way. There's a bunch of us still working our butts off to make that $4K. And it's a big deal to us.
ABC Girl, I don't think the suggestion is that $4K is chump change--that's real money! Rather, CUNY's tuition is far, far lower than most other universities' tuitions, and the relatively low debt burden a CUNY alum may come out with--let's say $15K rather than tens of thousands more or even 6 figues that an alum of a private U could end up with--may make it more appealing. And congratulations on the hard work for your degree.
Thanks for throwing some love at CUNY. I second Dr. Big Apple's comments--as a current student at the Grad Center I often get blank stares from people outside academia when I tell them what school I'm attending. It's gratifying to hear from colleagues in my field that my department runs a tough (read: well-respected, rigorous) program, but I'm still waiting for the day when my Grad Center program receives a level of attention anywhere near the level of attention given to the same programs and NYU or Columbia.
I was in a doctoral program at NYU and CUNY was very well-regarded. The only consolation I have for you is that if you're in academia, the opinions of other academics are the only ones that matter.