About

The City University of New York is the nation's leading urban public university, serving 540,000 students – more than 271,000 degree-credit students and nearly 270,000 in adult, continuing and professional education — at 24 institutions in New York City. The University includes 11 senior colleges, seven community colleges, the William E. Macaulay Honors College at CUNY, the Graduate School and University Center, the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, the CUNY School of Law, the CUNY School of Professional Studies, and the CUNY School of Public Health.

For more than a century and a half, CUNY's story has been one of civic inspiration, responsiveness to public needs and unshakable commitment to an idea: that quality higher education should be accessible and affordable for all. From its establishment in 1847 as the Free Academy to its existence today as New York City's public institution of higher learning, CUNY has hewed to its mission as it has evolved to meet the diverse and growing needs of an ever-changing city. <read more>

"Open the doors to all.... Let the children of the rich and the poor take their seats together and know of no distinction save that of industry, good conduct and intellect," declared Townsend Harris, president of the city's Board of Education, upon his founding of the Free Academy in a single building at Lexington Avenue and 23rd Street in Manhattan. His bold idea: to offer a free education to the children of immigrants and poorer city residents based on academic worth, not wealth.

It was the mid-19th century - the start of the Second Industrial Revolution - and the plan to prepare New Yorkers, native or newly arrived, for work and the professions was seen as a necessity. The plan was ratified through statewide referendum.

The Academy offered both vocational training and a traditional university curriculum. It proved a success. With fewer than 30 students at its opening, the Academy's enrollment steadily increased, as did its reputation. In 1866, it was renamed the College of the City of New York, and as its reputation and enrollment grew during the 1890s, a plot of land in Harlem, between 138th and 140th Streets, was selected for its campus. But the college never entirely left its downtown roots. Its School of Business and Civic Administration opened in 1919 in the original Free Academy building. In 1958, it was renamed for the financier and CCNY alumnus Bernard Baruch.

In 1870, building upon the Academy's principles, the Normal College of the City of New York was established as a free college for women. Open to all, regardless of race, religion or ethnic background, its primary function was to train city teachers. Guided by its first president, Irish immigrant Thomas Hunter, the Normal College offered rigorous academics and by 1920 boasted the highest enrollment of any municipally funded U.S. women's college. Its growth prompted a move from an East Fourth Street armory into a distinctive, neo-Gothic structure on Park Avenue between 68th and 69th Streets, part of which still stands today.

Renamed Hunter College in 1914, the Manhattan campus has quadrupled in size with expansion of its educational boundaries and enrollment. In Hunter's early years, the New York State Legislature approved the establishment of a high school and elementary school. Like its namesake college, Hunter College High School has produced scores of notable alumni, including Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan.

In the post-World War I era, the city's public colleges expanded, offering greater access to multitudes of New York students who could neither afford or be considered for other institutions of higher learning. During that period, Ivy League universities discriminated against Jews, and many Jewish academics and intellectuals taught and studied at New York's public colleges. The City College of 1930s was a place where the political movements of the day, particularly leftist ones, were hotly debated, giving rise to a number of notable 20th-century intellectuals.

During the 1920s, CCNY and Hunter began offering extension courses in the outer boroughs, responding to the demands of a rapidly growing population. But the extension courses did not satisfy the pressing demand for higher education. The colleges' Brooklyn divisions merged in 1930 to establish Brooklyn College, the third institution to branch from the Free Academy, and it acquired a campus in Flatbush distinguished by Georgian-style buildings. The Queens branches merged in 1937 to found Queens College. It was located in Flushing, in a collection of red-roofed, mission-style buildings that once housed delinquent boys. Today, the Queens "urban-suburban" campus covers 77 acres.

As the city's population - and public college enrollment - grew during the 20th century and the city struggled for resources, the municipal colleges slowly began adopting selective tuition, also known as instructional fees, for a handful of courses and programs. During the Great Depression, funding for the public colleges was severely constrained. As a result, limits were imposed on the size of the colleges' free Day Session, and tuition was initiated for students deemed "competent" but not academically qualified for the day program. Most of these "limited matriculation" students enrolled in the Evening Session.

The 1930s saw further expansion of the municipal public college system. Hunter-in-the-Bronx opened in four buildings, constructed by the state Works Progress Administration near the Jerome Park Reservoir. In its first decade, the Bronx campus served women taking their first two years of Hunter studies. During World War II, the Navy used the campus to train the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service); after the war, it provided temporary quarters for the United Nations.

After World War II, the GI Bill fueled an enrollment boom at the public colleges and further expansion and transformation. New York City College of Technology opened in 1946. CCNY began admitting women during the 1950s; in 1951, all-female Hunter-in-the-Bronx opened to men and introduced a four-year curriculum. Three two-year community colleges opened: Staten Island Community College in 1955, and Bronx Community College and Queensborough Community College in 1957.

Community college and graduate students paid tuition to attend the municipal colleges. At the four-year colleges, continuing the tuition structure imposed during the Depression, students who met the academic qualifications for day-session degree programs attended tuition-free while part-time and nonmatriculated students -- a growing sector of the student population -- paid tuition. In fall 1957, for example, nearly 36,000 attended Hunter, Brooklyn, Queens and City Colleges for free, but another 24,000 paid tuition of up to $300 a year -- the equivalent of $2,412 in 2011, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' online inflation calculator. That year, undergraduate tuition and other student fees comprised 17 percent of $46.8 million in the colleges' revenue, about $7.74 million -- a figure equivalent to $62.4 million in buying power today. Even with tuition, public higher education in New York represented an extraordinary value; New York University, for example, raised its tuition to $900 in 1957.

In 1960, 91,000 students were enrolled in the city's public four-year colleges - City, Hunter, Brooklyn and Queens - and in the three community colleges. That year, a committee of the city's Board of Higher Education, which then oversaw the colleges, proposed that they be reorganized into a new, public university that would have Ph.D.-granting authority. The recommendation followed expansion moves by the State University of New York, which had been established in 1948.

In 1961, Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller signed the bill that reformulated the College of the City of New York into The City University of New York, a tuition-free public institution uniting the seven colleges and giving the new University authority to offer doctoral programs. Dr. John R. Everett, a highly regarded educator and former philosophy professor, was selected as its first Chancellor. Dr. Mina Rees, a noted mathematician and Hunter's Dean of Faculty, was named Dean of Graduate Studies for the Graduate Center.

During the early 1960s, the Legislature provided increased state funding for CUNY but repealed the guarantee of free tuition for matriculated day students in baccalaureate degree programs. The Board of Higher Education was given the authority to impose tuition at its discretion, but continued the free tuition tradition. Tuition had always been charged at the State University, however, and over the next decade and a half when CUNY sought additional funding from the state, the tuition issue would come into play.

Demand for a CUNY education continued to increase with the city's growth, and the University responded, opening new colleges. John Jay College of Criminal Justice was founded in 1964 and York College in 1966. In 1968, Hunter-in-the Bronx was renamed Lehman College after four-time Gov. Herbert H. Lehman and established as a separate CUNY school. Medgar Evers College, named for the slain civil rights leader, was founded in 1970, and in 1976 the four-year College of Staten Island resulted from the merger of Richmond and Staten Island Community Colleges. New community colleges opened: Borough of Manhattan and Kingsborough in 1963, LaGuardia in 1968, and Hostos in 1970.

The 1960s had been pivotal. As entry to CUNY's colleges became more competitive and funding for new facilities lagged, protesters agitated for more access for minority students. Following demands for change, the University in 1970 established "open admissions," which offered a free education to any city resident with a high school diploma or equivalency degree; many thousands of students surged into CUNY schools during the 1970s.

Then came the New York City fiscal crisis. Under pressure from the federal government, the financial community critical to rescuing the city from bankruptcy, and New York State, which would assume funding of CUNY's senior colleges, tuition was instituted in fall 1976 at all CUNY colleges, albeit at a fraction of the cost of other private and public colleges. Soon thereafter, need-based New York State Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) funds, originally earmarked for private colleges, were extended to eligible CUNY students, and the federal Pell grant program to aid low-income students, was established, providing further aid.

Throughout the next decade, the University's enrollment dipped, in part because of a perception that CUNY's academic quality had declined. In 1999, a mayoral task force chaired by Benno Schmidt, who would later become chairperson of the Board of Trustees, proposed an overhaul to reverse the downward trend.

The University, led by a new chancellor, Matthew Goldstein, amended its open admissions policy. Open admissions and remedial classes for students needing them would only be offered at the community colleges. Students would meet grade or exam criteria to gain admission to the four-year senior colleges.

These and other critical changes pressed by Chancellor Goldstein - including a focus on science and research, creation of new professional schools, and an innovative University funding strategy - have revitalized CUNY. Its 24 institutions now include the Macaulay Honors College, CUNY Law School, CUNY School of Journalism and the CUNY School of Public Health. The University has embarked on other measures to strengthen its programs and fulfill its mission, including the construction of state-of-the-art research facilities, recruitment of accomplished full-time faculty, creation of a University-wide core curriculum and the opening of the first new CUNY community college in 42 years, The New Community College at CUNY, which is designed to improve graduation rates and foster a focus on professional skills and goals.

CUNY's academic resurgence and burnished reputation have enhanced the value of a CUNY degree and opened the doors -- in the spirit of founder Townsend Harris -- to a historic record enrollment of students seeking a college degree as a pathway to a better life.

Today, CUNY attracts record numbers of students, including high academic achievers and winners of prestigious Rhodes, Truman and Goldwater scholarships. Led by the Macaulay Honors College, the University's senior colleges have become more competitive, while the community colleges continue to offer open enrollment to any high school graduate.

Federal and state aid covers education costs for the neediest students -- six out of 10 full-time undergraduates attend college tuition-free thanks to federal Pell grants and New York State Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) awards and University financial-aid programs. And tuition increases are modest and predictable to help families manage and plan. The University has embarked on multi-billion dollar fundraising campaign and other steps to cope with strained resources.

Challenged and tested throughout nearly two centuries of service, the University is proudly moving forward in new and exciting directions to meet the higher educational challenges of the "whole people" in the 21st Century, fulfilling its earliest promise, and leading with passion, commitment and excellence.