WHAT WILL BE THE IMPACT OF THE NEW TRUSTEE RESOLUTION ON REMEDIATION?

This question has been addressed by expert analysts. According to their analyses, it is likely that as each of the four year campuses comes into compliance with the new resolution--and subsequently denies admission to students who need remedial help in one or more skill areas--somewhere between 34 and 64% of its student body, varying from campus to campus, will be denied the opportunity to enter the campus as freshman. Any student, no matter his or her particular superior talents or achievements, who needs help even in one area that cannot be completed in a single summer, will be denied access to a senior college. This is true even though a sizeable percentage of CUNY students are returning as adults, fitting classes between commitments to work and family. To expect those

students to complete all their remedial courses in one summer flies in the face of reality. Presumably this would also apply to transfer students from private colleges now coming into CUNY who require a remedial class. Using figures from the class of 1997, if the new resolution had been in effect just under half of the white freshmen and approximately two-thirds of minority entrants would not have been admitted.

Denial of access to these students is bad educational policy. It makes each student’s struggle for a degree more difficult. It threatens a huge loss of dollars to each individual college, potentially threatens the survival of some campuses, will weaken the earning power of thousands of students and has serious long term negative implications for the City’s economy. The University will have lost its most basic mission, and will be denying today’s students the access and opportunity offered to previous generations of New Yorkers. The city’s racial and ethnic minority communities will bear the brunt of this discrimination.

Denial of access to these students is not only bad educational policy, it is bad public policy. The City University is the engine of the city’s greatness as the capital of the world’s economy and as a global capital in the world of ideas. CUNY is the prime mechanism for creating new generations of leadership. Denying students access to higher education today will deplete the city of human capital in the future. The long-term costs of this policy are devastating.

The Board resolution flies in the face of twenty-five years of demonstrated experience that most students can complete credit-bearing courses while taking remedial work and that CUNY can and does bring students successfully up to the demands of college-level work.

The Acting Chancellor of the University advised the Board that more moderate adjustments would better serve the interests of the students and the school. There was a thoughtful proposal introduced by Trustee John Morning, which had been approved 6 to 2 by the Board’s Long Range Planning Committee. It would have continued the policy of allowing colleges to limit students to no more than one semester of remedial services; this policy had just begun to be implemented. Instead, the Board voted to phase out remedial services in all baccalaureate degree colleges by 2001.

The Mayor and the Governor applied tremendous pressure on their appointees to approve this draconian resolution. Three of the Mayor’s five appointees hold city jobs at the pleasure of the Mayor, thus creating an obvious conflict of interest. Two of these are commissioners, and one heads a quasi-public entity.

HAVE CUNY STANDARDS FALLEN? IS THE UNIVERSITY GUILTY OF GRADE INFLATION?

It is astounding that the Mayor, some members of the Board of Trustees and some reporters and opinion writers have convinced the general public that the University’s standards have fallen and that the University faculty inflate grades to push students through. Astoundingly, nothing could be further from the truth. The requirements to remain a student in good standing at CUNY’s four-year and two-year colleges are among the most stringent in the nation.

Similarly, CUNY grades are tougher than those awarded nationally. Nationally, 58% of all grades are A’s and B’s; at CUNY schools, only 48% are. Nationally, 11% of the grades indicate a failure to pass; at CUNY schools this figure rises to 21%.

In other words, CUNY is only 85% as likely as other students to give grades of A or B and is twice as likely not to give passing grades as is the average college in the United States. In both cases, CUNY’s standards are significantly more rigorous than those of the average college.

WHAT IS THE GRADUATION RATE AT CUNY?

Let’s finally get these facts straight. The Mayor says it takes CUNY students "too long" to graduate, citing a community college graduation rate of less than 2%.

First of all, in order to graduate in four years students would need to carry 15 credits per semester for eight consecutive semesters. However, 12 credits constitute a full load. Also, many CUNY students are older. Two-thirds have jobs to support themselves and their families and cope with regular increases in CUNY tuition. Many have children or dependent parents or both.

Additionally, because of budget cuts they often cannot find the courses they need to fulfill their academic requirements. The result: 60 or 70% of undergraduates attend part time at some point during their enrollment and expect to take more than two or four years to complete their degree. The fact is that there is no longer anything "normal" any place in the country about on time graduation in two or four year colleges. Actually, CUNY’s long-term graduation rates are better than the national average. After five years, 23.8% of community college students across the nation graduated and 27.9% of CUNY students did. After eight years, CUNY graduation rates increase to 45.1%, surpassing the national figure for public universities of 40.8%.

IS IT TRUE THAT A CUNY DEGREE NO LONGER HAS ANY VALUE OR COMMANDS ANY RESPECT?

It is shocking to have the Mayor of the City talk about City University as a failed education system, suggesting that its students never graduate, that a CUNY degree is meaningless, that its graduates cannot make their way in the world. This is as untrue as it is insulting.

CUNY graduates get jobs and contribute to the City’s economy. CUNY graduates secure entrance to advanced degree programs at public and private universities throughout the United States. From 1983-92, 3800 CUNY graduates earned Ph.D.s around the United States. More than two-thirds of the advanced degrees earned by CUNY graduates in the last 14 years were earned outside the CUNY system.

At this year’s CUNY job fair, despite months of relentless attack on the University, 120 corporations rented booths and about 1000 students were hired in that one day. Many of these students started their college careers taking one or more remedial courses; under the new resolution they would have been denied admittance. As a result of their studies, CUNY students earn far more than they would have without their degrees.

WHAT IS THE COMPOSITION AND CHARGE OF THE TASK FORCE NAMED BY THE MAYOR TO STUDY CITY UNIVERSITY?

Mayor Giuliani has appointed a Task Force chaired by Dr.Benno Schmidt, head of the Edison Project, to study City University. The Mayor’s charge to the Task Force repeats many of the incorrect assertions discussed above and assumes that the quality of a CUNY education is no longer acceptable. Further, it assumes that remedial services should be provided by private companies. There is no evidence that this would yield better results than the present system. Indeed, CUNY has decades of experience offering remedial courses and seeing students complete them successfully; no private company has had this experience with comparable students. People are meeting with Chairman Schmidt to challenge these assumptions and preconceptions and urge a full and fair review of the facts.

WHAT IS THE IMPACT OF CUNY BUDGET CUTS OVER THE LAST TEN YEARS?

In a generation, the number of full time faculty at City University has fall en from 10,500 to 5,500. At the same time, faculty course loads have increased, class size has grown, and over half the faculty are adjuncts. The Mayor has refused to budget the City’s fair share of community college support, compounding the problems created by State cuts in funding for higher education. According to every higher education funding indicator, New York State now rates either 48th or 50th in the nation. The absolute level of spending on higher education is high in New York only because we are the nation’s third most populous state. We rank at or near the bottom in terms of per capita expenditure, per cent of the state budget, etc. This is a crisis for our educational and our economic future.

WHAT IS THE STATUS OF SUNY?

The Governor, whose appointees voted to outlaw remedial services at the four-year colleges in the City University, has not touched the remedial programs on SUNY campuses. Indeed, the Governor has made various threats against the State University, has consistently under-funded higher education and has, at both CUNY and SUNY, contributed to the gross politicization of the Board.

AND, FINALLY, SOME BASIC FACTS:

There are about 200,000 students at the City University. Approximately 62% are women. Approximately 75% are from designated minority groups. CUNY students average 25 years of age and work part or full time. Many are from homes at the poverty level. CUNY graduation rates in both the four-year and the two-year college programs have gone up in the last several years as has the level of students coming out of the public schools.

CONCLUSION

Access to opportunity and high educational standards at New York’s public colleges and universities must remain a top priority; access and standards constitute the vitals of New York’s economic and social life. To that end, the Committee of Public Higher Education encourages government leaders, members of the CUNY and SUNY Boards of Trustees, and the citizens of New York State and City to disregard the anti-CUNY rhetoric, to seek out the truth, and to insist that affordable and accessibly public higher education remain a right -- and not a privilege for a select few.

To ensure New Yorkers’ right to higher education, the CUNY Board of Trustee’ s resolution must be amended. If not, tens of thousands of otherwise capable students, many of whom are women and minorities, will be denied access to the City’s only system of public higher education. The future of the City University and the fate of its constituents must rest not with politicians, but with educators. It is unfortunate and dangerous that the reverse has proved to be the case. The Committee for Public Higher Education’s efforts are trained on removing politics from education policy, while at the same time working with a broad constituency to improve existing policy and proposed changes to that policy. Action must be taken now for the students, for the City University, for the City and for the future.