There’s been a whole lot of dialog these days in regards to the worth of school. Some are questioning the long-term advantage of a level that will increase a graduate’s revenue solely to saddle them with many years of debt. Certainly, a current New York Occasions Journal article argued that the school affordability disaster has deeply undermined People’ religion in increased schooling as probably the most dependable path to upward mobility.
As we speak’s highschool college students are bombarded with details about non-public faculties whose annual tuition payments exceed common salaries. They hear much less in regards to the many wonderful public faculties with reasonably priced tuition that leaves graduates with little or no debt. Consequently, too many low-income college students hand over on the opportunity of going to school — a resignation that lowers their incomes potential over time and perpetuates long-standing inequities.
That divide goes to the guts of why CUNY is partnering with the New York Metropolis Public Colleges in a marketing campaign to achieve and recruit extra metropolis highschool seniors. All through October — which we’re designating “CUNY Month” — we might be sending out welcome letters, waiving the applying price and providing greater than 100 in-person and digital occasions to showcase the broad vary of educational and profession applications that make CUNY’s 25 campuses the nation’s main engine of financial and social mobility.
In early October, steerage counselors all through town might be handing out customized letters to some 65,000 highschool seniors to introduce them to CUNY and the numerous choices obtainable at our 19 undergraduate campuses. There might be a QR code that hyperlinks to an admissions web page the place college students can begin an software, analysis monetary help and scholarships and chat with a CUNY enrollment counselor. And the letter will supply Fall 2024 admission at one among CUNY’s seven two-year faculties for all college students who earn their highschool diploma or equivalency by the tip of the varsity 12 months.
The message to younger New Yorkers from NYC Public Colleges Chancellor David Banks and me: There’s a spot for you at CUNY.
Greater than 80% of CUNY freshmen come from town’s public faculties, and this partnership between the nation’s largest public college system and the biggest city college opens the doorways of alternative even wider. It’s going to give highschool seniors an early and inspiring introduction to CUNY, streamline their enrollment and clean their transition to school. On the identical time, it’ll improve the variety of college-bound college students, notably first-generation college students and people who may in any other case choose out of school as a result of they suppose it’s too costly.
What they’ll be taught is that the annual tuition for state residents is simply $4,800 at CUNY’s seven neighborhood faculties and $6,930 at our 11 four-year faculties. That’s a fraction of the tutoring on the typical non-public faculty and at many out-of-state public universities. And due to the supply of state and federal monetary help, most CUNY undergraduates pay no tuition in any respect and 76% graduate debt-free.
We’re additionally letting households know that CUNY college students can get a spread of educational, social and monetary assist to assist college students keep on observe and graduate. In the meantime, our burgeoning career-development initiatives are offering rising numbers of our college students with paid internships that not solely assist pay for the fundamentals however give them invaluable expertise and contacts for careers after they graduate.
The main target this October is on the numerous hundreds of highschool seniors who’re considering their futures and making selections about whether or not to go to school, and the place. For them, CUNY’s reply is within the phrases that can quickly seem in an promoting marketing campaign on subways, buses, ferries and billboards across the metropolis: “A Diploma for Each Dream.”
We would like them, and the entire metropolis, to know that high-quality, reasonably priced schooling is true across the nook.
Matos Rodríguez is the chancellor of The Metropolis College of New York (CUNY), the biggest city public college system in america
