Total Enrollment Grows 3%, Driven by 6% Increase at CUNY Community Colleges & 4% Jump in New Graduate Students  

Unveils Campus Roadmap for Career Success 

“We Are a University Driven by the Promise of Boundless Opportunity and Propelled by the Perseverance, Talent, Passion and Imagination of Our Diverse Community.” 

Transcript From Today’s Address Available Here

City University of New York Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez today delivered his State of the University Address, announcing that total enrollment grew 3%, the University’s second consecutive yearly increase, totaling almost 15,000 students over the past two years. Critically, this year’s jump was driven by a 6% increase at CUNY’s community colleges, which were hardest hit hardest by pandemic-induced declines, and a 4% growth in new graduate student enrollment – the first in four years. 

“The increase in student enrollment demonstrates that the past year, often eventful and challenging, has also been a time of progress,” said CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez. “These achievements, from enrollment to career engagement and research, demonstrate that when we come together, there is no limit to our ability to expand opportunity, improve lives and make our city a better place. And while there is still work to do, I’ve never been more confident in CUNY and our ability to deliver on our core mission of providing a first-rate education to every New Yorker, regardless of means or background.” 

During the speech, which took place at New York City College of Technology, Chancellor Matos Rodríguez also discussed plans to transform the CUNY School of Medicine into an independent college within the University. The transition will enable the school, founded in 1973 as The Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education at The City College of New York, to bolster its impact, simplify accreditation and advance its dual mandate to produce diverse medical practitioners and provide quality health services to underserved communities across New York City, where over half of residents identify as Black or Latino but just 16% of physicians are. 

As part of CUNY’s continued effort to prepare students for professional success after graduation, the Chancellor announced that CUNY will be pursuing a campus roadmap for career success beginning this spring. A wide-ranging strategy to propel career outcomes for CUNY students, this initiative will build on the success of CUNY’s proven interventions, including career-infused degree maps, a tool that helps students identify careers aligned with their degrees and reach milestones – including paid internships – that are key to competing for jobs in those fields. Funded by a $700,000 grant from the Robin Hood Foundation, these degree-career maps have been adopted by more than 100 academic departments across CUNY thus far.   

Other speech highlights include:  

  • CUNY received its largest NIH grant this year and had a second year of record research funding. 
  • Applications to CUNY during the free application period, which ended on Nov. 15, were 57,512, up from 13% from last fall. 
  • More than 40,000 New Yorkers with college credits have returned to CUNY through the three-year-old Reconnect program, including 8,000 this fall.   
  • From 2019 through 2023, CUNY drew $2.8 billion in funding for research, training and other sponsored activity – a nearly 30% increase over the previous five-year period. 
  • In the last two years, CUNY has completed 73 capital projects totaling $760 million in investments, including a new Nursing Education, Research, and Practice Center at Lehman College. 
  • The past two years were CUNY’s best ever for major gifts from philanthropic donors: 
  • $116 million from the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Foundation to create the Cohen Career Collective workforce training center at LaGuardia Community College. This is the largest gift to a U.S. community college. 
  • $52 million from Leonard Lauder to establish the Evelyn Lauder Community Care Nurse Practitioner Program at Hunter College.
  • $75 million from the Simons Foundation and Simons Foundation International to become a hub for computational science and artificial intelligence. These funds also support CUNY’s participation in Gov. Hochul’s Empire AI project.

– Story courtesy of CUNY Media Relations