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Newly minted New York Metropolis colleges Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos stopped by the nation’s largest highschool on Tuesday to proceed a push began by her predecessor: to encourage extra college students to use to the Metropolis College of New York.
Aviles-Ramos, who took the helm of the nation’s largest faculty system final week, visited Brooklyn Technical Excessive Faculty to guarantee college students they’d have a spot at CUNY in the event that they wished one.
“So long as you end sturdy, you have got a spot at CUNY,” Aviles-Ramos advised a gaggle of seniors gathered within the faculty’s library earlier than she and CUNY Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez handed out “welcome” letters to the scholars laying out the wonderful print concerning CUNY admissions. CUNY’s four-year faculties are selective and require functions, whereas two-year applications assure admission to all highschool graduates.
The 6,000-student Brooklyn Tech — one of many metropolis’s eight specialised excessive colleges that admit college students on the idea of a single take a look at — is among the many largest faculty feeders to the CUNY system and despatched some 400 college students final yr, CUNY officers mentioned.
The letter distribution marketing campaign is the continuation of an effort launched final yr by Matos Rodríguez and former colleges Chancellor David Banks, who not too long ago departed amid a swirl of federal investigations into Mayor Eric Adams’ administration.
It’s half of a bigger initiative to spice up functions from metropolis public faculty college students to CUNY, which, like many faculties, has been affected by a pandemic enrollment hunch and shifting norms round greater schooling. Together with waiving software charges for a bigger proportion of metropolis college students, the letters helped spur a dramatic spike in CUNY functions, which multiplied practically fivefold final fall in comparison with the yr earlier than. Greater than 80% of CUNY freshmen come from town’s public excessive colleges.
Colleges are distributing an estimated 65,000 CUNY welcome letters once more this yr to all highschool seniors. CUNY is waiving software charges for all metropolis public faculty college students from Oct. 21 to Nov. 15.
Whereas CUNY’s fall enrollment numbers aren’t finalized, Matos Rodriguez is projecting a 2-3% improve in comparison with final yr. That will be the second straight yr of accelerating enrollment for the CUNY system, which noticed pupil numbers crater by about 17% throughout the pandemic, with the steepest drops coming in the neighborhood faculties.
General faculty enrollment amongst New York Metropolis public faculty college students has additionally began to rebound. Round 73% of 2022 highschool graduates enrolled in greater schooling inside six months. That was down from a peak of 81% in 2018 however up from 71% in 2021, in accordance with probably the most not too long ago accessible metropolis knowledge.
How CUNY weathered final yr’s FAFSA snafus
A spike in functions doesn’t all the time translate to elevated enrollment, some consultants have cautioned. College students additionally confronted stronger-than-normal headwinds final yr after the botched rollout of a brand new Free Software for Federal Pupil Assist (FAFSA) type disrupted the monetary assist course of for college students throughout the nation.
CUNY was capable of climate these points higher than some, Matos Rodriguez mentioned.
The FAFSA snafu “was no more of a catastrophe” for CUNY as a result of it had programs already in place to assist candidates struggling to finish their monetary assist kinds, Matos-Rodriguez mentioned. In consequence, the variety of new candidates who accomplished their FAFSA final yr fell by about 5 proportion factors at CUNY, in comparison with about eight proportion factors statewide, officers mentioned.
CUNY has additionally been making an attempt to place itself as an antidote to one in all a variety of elements that drove down faculty enrollment, together with mounting considerations about debt and shifting perceptions of whether or not faculty is a worthwhile funding.
Roughly three-quarters of scholars at CUNY, which prices roughly $3,500 a semester at its four-year faculties for New York residents, attend tuition-free. The identical proportion graduates with no debt, each chancellors mentioned.
Brooklyn Tech Assistant Principal Lourdes Cuesta mentioned CUNY is a essential possibility for college students who need or want to remain near dwelling.
“The place is an honest schooling that my dad and mom know that’s reasonably priced, that I can attend? CUNY checks these packing containers,” she mentioned.
About 19% of 2023 Brooklyn Tech graduates enrolled in a CUNY four-year faculty, and one other 3% went to a CUNY neighborhood faculty, in accordance with metropolis knowledge.
Aviles-Ramos shares her personal CUNY journey
Aviles-Ramos supplied a private plug for CUNY, citing her constructive expertise as a graduate pupil at Metropolis Faculty after struggling as an undergraduate at Fordham College, a non-public faculty within the Bronx.
As an undergraduate, “I used to be working three jobs … and I used to be missing plenty of the delicate expertise” like examine methods and time administration, Aviles-Ramos advised the seniors. “And so my GPA was truly actually, actually dangerous once I graduated,” leaving her involved she wouldn’t get a job as a instructor, she mentioned.
However staffers at Metropolis Faculty’s instructing masters program noticed her potential and helped her earn the diploma that launched her profession in schooling, she mentioned.
That message resonated with 17-year-old Armani Maharjan, a Brooklyn Tech senior who attended Tuesday’s occasion.
“I do know we’re imagined to be a specialised highschool, however there’s nonetheless so many youngsters right here that battle,” she mentioned. “The truth that they’re saying that we’re all welcome at CUNY is very nice. And the way the chancellor was speaking about how she had a low GPA however nonetheless bought to complete as a instructor, that’s actually inspiring.”
Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, overlaying NYC public colleges. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org
