Founding

In 1960, John R. Everett became the first chancellor of the Municipal College System of the City of New York, later renamed CUNY, for a salary of $25,000 ($257,000 in current dollar terms).^[9][10][11] CUNY was created in 1961,^[12] by New York State legislation, signed into law by Governor Nelson Rockefeller. The legislation integrated existing institutions and a new graduate school into a coordinated system of higher education for the city, under the control of the "Board of Higher Education of the City of New York", which had been created by New York State legislation in 1926. By 1979, the Board of Higher Education had become the "Board of Trustees of the CUNY".^[13]

The institutions that were merged to create CUNY were:^[13]

• The Free Academy – Founded in 1847 by Townsend Harris, it was fashioned as "a Free Academy for the purpose of extending the benefits of education gratuitously to persons who have been pupils in the common schools of the city and county of New York." The Free Academy later became the City College of New York.
• The Female Normal and High School – Founded in 1870, and later renamed the Normal College. It would be renamed again in 1914 to Hunter College. During the early 20th century, Hunter College expanded into the Bronx, with what became Herbert Lehman College.^[13]
• Brooklyn College – Founded in 1930.
• Queens College – Founded in 1937.

Accessible education

CUNY has served a diverse student body, especially those excluded from or unable to afford private universities. Its four-year colleges offered a high-quality, tuition-free education to the poor, the working class, and the immigrants of New York City who met the grade requirements for matriculated status. During the post-World War I era, when some Ivy League universities, such as Yale University, discriminated against Jews, many Jewish academics and intellectuals studied and taught at CUNY.^[14] The City College of New York developed a reputation of being "the Harvard of the proletariat."^[15]

As New York City's population and public college enrollment grew during the early 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, with funding for public colleges severely constrained, limits were imposed on the size of the colleges' free Day Sessions, and tuition was imposed upon students deemed "competent" but not academically qualified for the day program. Most of these "limited matriculation" students enrolled in the Evening Sessions, and paid tuition.^[16] Additionally, as the population of New York grew, CUNY was not able to accommodate the demand for higher education. Higher and higher requirements for admission were imposed; in 1965, a student seeking admission to CUNY needed an average grade of 92 or A−.^[17] This helped to ensure that the student population of CUNY remained largely white and middle-class.^[17]

Demand in the United States for higher education rapidly grew after World War II, and during the mid-1940s a movement began to create community colleges to provide accessible education and training. In New York City, however, the community college movement was constrained by many factors including "financial problems, narrow perceptions of responsibility, organizational weaknesses, adverse political factors, and other competing priorities."^[18]

Community colleges would have drawn from the same city coffers that were funding the senior colleges, and city higher education officials were of the view that the state should finance them. It was not until 1955, under a shared-funding arrangement with New York State, that New York City established its first community college, on Staten Island. Unlike the day college students attending the city's public baccalaureate colleges for free, community college students had to pay tuition fees under the state-city funding formula. Community college students paid tuition fees for approximately 10 years.^[18]

Over time, tuition fees for limited-matriculated students became an important source of system revenues. In fall 1957, for example, nearly 36,000 attended Hunter, Brooklyn, Queens and City Colleges for free, but another 24,000 paid tuition fees of up to $300 a year ($3,300 in current dollar terms).^[19] Undergraduate tuition and other student fees in 1957 comprised 17 percent of the colleges' $46.8 million in revenues, about $7.74 million ($83,970,000 in current dollar terms).^[20]

Three community colleges had been established by early 1961 when New York City's public colleges were codified by the state as a single university with a chancellor at the helm and an infusion of state funds. But the city's slowness in creating the community colleges as demand for college seats was intensifying and had resulted in mounting frustration, particularly on the part of minorities, that college opportunities were not available to them.

In 1964, as New York City's Board of Higher Education moved to take full responsibility for the community colleges, city officials extended the senior colleges' free tuition policy to them, a change that was included by Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. in his budget plans and took effect with the 1964–65 academic year.^[21]

Calls for greater access to public higher education from the black and Puerto Rican communities in New York, especially in Brooklyn, led to the founding of "Community College Number 7," later Medgar Evers College, in 1966–1967.^[17] In 1969, a group of black and Puerto Rican students occupied City College and demanded the racial integration of CUNY, which at the time had an overwhelmingly white student body.^[18]

Student protests

Students at some campuses became increasingly frustrated with the university's and Board of Higher Education's handling of university administration. At Baruch College in 1967, over a thousand students protested the plan to make the college an upper-division school limited to junior, senior, and graduate students.^[22] At Brooklyn College in 1968, students attempted a sit-in to demand the admission of more black and Puerto Rican students and additional black studies curriculum.^[23] Students at Hunter College also demanded a Black studies program.^[24] Members of the SEEK program, which provided academic support for underprepared and underprivileged students, staged a building takeover at Queens College in 1969 to protest the decisions of the program's director, who would later be replaced by a black professor.^[25][26] Puerto Rican students at Bronx Community College filed a report with the New York State Division of Human Rights in 1970, contending that the intellectual level of the college was inferior and discriminatory.^[27] Hunter College was crippled for several days by a protest of 2,000 students who had a list of demands focusing on more student representation in college administration.^[28] Across CUNY, students boycotted their campuses in 1970 to protest a rise in student fees and other issues, including the proposed (and later implemented) open admissions plan.^[29]

Like many college campuses in 1970, CUNY faced a number of protests and demonstrations after the Kent State massacre and Cambodian Campaign. The Administrative Council of the City University of New York sent U.S. president Richard Nixon a telegram in 1970 stating, "No nation can long endure the alienation of the best of its young people."^[30] Some colleges, including John Jay College of Criminal Justice, historically the "college for cops," held teach-ins in addition to student and faculty protests.^[31]

Open admissions

Under pressure from community activists and CUNY Chancellor Albert Bowker, the Board of Higher Education (BHE) approved an Open Admissions plan in 1966, but it was not scheduled to be fully implemented until 1975.^[17] However, in 1969, students and faculty across CUNY participated in rallies, student strikes, and class boycotts demanding an end to CUNY's restrictive admissions policies. CUNY administrators and Mayor John Lindsay expressed support for these demands, and the BHE voted to implement the plan immediately in the fall of 1970.^[17]

The doors to CUNY were opened wide to all those demanding entrance, assuring all high school graduates entrance to the university without having to fulfill traditional requirements such as exams or grades. This policy was known as open admissions and nearly doubled the number of students enrolling in the CUNY system to 35,000 (compared to 20,000 the year before). With greater numbers came more diversity: Black and Hispanic student enrollment increased threefold.^[32] Remedial education, to supplement the training of under-prepared students, became a significant part of CUNY's offerings.^[33]

Additionally, ethnic and Black Studies programs and centers were instituted on many CUNY campuses, contributing to the growth of similar programs nationwide.^[17]

However, retention of students in CUNY during this period was low, with two-thirds of students enrolled in the early 1970s leaving within four years without graduating.^[17] Robert Kibbee was chancellor of the City University of New York, the third-largest university in the United States, from 1971 to 1982.^[34]

Financial crisis of 1976

In fall 1976, during New York City's fiscal crisis, the free tuition policy was discontinued under pressure from the federal government, the financial community that had a role in rescuing the city from bankruptcy, and New York State, which would take over the funding of CUNY's senior colleges.^[35] Tuition, which had been in place in the State University of New York system since 1963, was instituted at all CUNY colleges.^[36][37]

Meanwhile, CUNY students were added to the state's need-based Tuition Assistance Program (TAP), which had been created to help private colleges.^[38] Full-time students who met the income eligibility criteria were permitted to receive TAP, ensuring for the first time that financial hardship would deprive no CUNY student of a college education.^[38] Within a few years, the federal government would create its own need-based program, known as Pell Grants, providing the neediest students with a tuition-free college education. Joseph S. Murphy was Chancellor of the City University of New York from 1982 to 1990, when he resigned.^[39] CUNY at the time was the third-largest university in the United States, with over 180,000 students.^[40]

By 2011, nearly six of ten full-time undergraduates qualified for a tuition-free education at CUNY due in large measure to state, federal and CUNY financial aid programs.^[41] CUNY's enrollment dipped after tuition was re-established, and there were further enrollment declines through the 1980s and into the 1990s.^[42]

Financial crisis of 1995

In 1995, CUNY suffered another fiscal crisis when Governor George Pataki proposed a drastic cut in state financing.^[43] Faculty cancelled classes and students staged protests. By May, CUNY adopted deep cuts to college budgets and class offerings.^[44] By June, to save money spent on remedial programs, CUNY adopted a stricter admissions policy for its senior colleges: students deemed unprepared for college would not be admitted, this a departure from the 1970 Open Admissions program.^[45] That year's final state budget cut funding by $102 million, which CUNY absorbed by increasing tuition by $750 and offering a retirement incentive plan for faculty.

In 1999, a task force appointed by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani issued a report that described CUNY as "an institution adrift" and called for an improved, more cohesive university structure and management, as well as more consistent academic standards. Following the report, Matthew Goldstein, a mathematician and City College graduate who had led CUNY's Baruch College and briefly, Adelphi University, was appointed chancellor. CUNY ended its policy of open admissions to its four-year colleges, raised its admissions standards at its most selective four-year colleges (Baruch, Brooklyn, City, Hunter and Queens), and required new enrollees who needed remediation, to begin their studies at a CUNY open-admissions community college.^[46]

2010 onwards

CUNY's enrollment of degree-credit students reached 220,727 in 2005 and 262,321 in 2010 as the university broadened its academic offerings.^[47] The university added more than 2,000 full-time faculty positions, opened new schools and programs, and expanded the university's fundraising efforts to help pay for them.^[46] Fundraising increased from $35 million in 2000 to more than $200 million in 2012.^[48]

As of Autumn 2013, all CUNY undergraduates are required to take an administration-dictated common core of courses which have been claimed to meet specific "learning outcomes" or standards. Since the courses are accepted university-wide, the administration claims it will be easier for students to transfer course credits between CUNY colleges. It also reduced the number of core courses some CUNY colleges had required, to a level below national norms, particularly in the sciences.^[49][50] The program is the target of several lawsuits by students and faculty, and was the subject of a "no confidence" vote by the faculty, who rejected it by an overwhelming 92% margin.^[51]

Chancellor Goldstein retired on July 1, 2013, and was replaced on June 1, 2014, by James Milliken, president of the University of Nebraska, and a graduate of the University of Nebraska and New York University School of Law.^[52] Milliken retired at the end of the 2018 academic year and moved on to become the chancellor for the University of Texas system.^[53][54]

In 2018, CUNY opened its 25th campus, the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies, named after former president Joseph S. Murphy and combining some forms and functions of the Murphy Institute that were housed at the CUNY School of Professional Studies.^[55]

On February 13, 2019, the board of trustees voted to appoint Queens College president Felix V. Matos Rodriguez as the chancellor of the City University of New York.^[56] Matos became both the first Latino and minority educator to head the university. He assumed the post May 1.^[57]

CUNY Citizenship Now!

Founded in 1997 by immigration lawyer Allan Wernick, CUNY Citizenship Now! is an immigration assistance organization that provides free and confidential immigration law services to help individuals and families on their path to U.S. citizenship.^[61][62] In 2021, CUNY launched a College Immigrant Ambassador Program in partnership with the New York City Department of Education.^[63][64]

Notable faculty

• André Aciman, writer, Graduate Center
• Ali Jimale Ahmed, poet and professor of Comparative Literature, Queens College and Graduate Center^[70]
• F. Murray Abraham, actor of stage and screen; professor of theater, winner of the Academy Award for Best Actor, Brooklyn College
• Chantal Akerman, film director, City College of New York
• Meena Alexander, poet and writer, Graduate Center and Hunter College
• Hannah Arendt, philosopher and political theorist; author of The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) and The Human Condition (1958), Brooklyn College
• Talal Asad, anthropologist, Graduate Center
• John Ashbery, poet, Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winner, Brooklyn College
• William Bialek, biophysicist, Graduate Center
• Edwin G. Burrows, historian and writer, Pulitzer Prize for History winner for co-writing Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 with Mike Wallace, Brooklyn College
• Ron Carter, jazz bassist, City College
• Joe Chambers, jazz drummer, City College
• Dee L. Clayman, classicist, Graduate Center
• Margaret Clapp, scholar, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, president of Wellesley College, Brooklyn College
• Ta-Nehisi Coates, writer, journalist, and activist, CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
• Billy Collins, poet, U.S. Poet Laureate, Lehman College (retired)
• Blanche Wiesen Cook, historian, John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Graduate Center
• John Corigliano, composer, Graduate Center
• Michael Cunningham, writer, winner of Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and PEN/Faulkner Award for The Hours, Brooklyn College
• Roy DeCarava, artist and photographer, Hunter College^[71]
• Carolyn Eisele, mathematician, Hunter College
• Nancy Fraser, philosopher and political scientist, Graduate Center
• Ruth Wilson Gilmore, geographer, Graduate Center
• Allen Ginsberg, beat poet, Brooklyn College
• Aaron Goodelman, sculptor^[72]
• Joel Glucksman, Olympic saber fencer, Brooklyn College
• Ralph Goldstein, Olympic épée fencer, Brooklyn College
• Michael Grossman, economist, Graduate Center
• Kimiko Hahn, poet, winner of PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, Queens College
• David Harvey, geographer, Graduate Center
• Jimmy Heath, jazz saxophonist, City College
• Bell Hooks, educator, writer and critic, City College of New York^[73]
• Karen Brooks Hopkins, president of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn College
• John Hospers, first presidential candidate of the US Libertarian Party, Brooklyn College
• Tyehimba Jess, poet, winner of Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, College of Staten Island
• KC Johnson born (1967), Brooklyn College and Graduate Center
• Sheila Jordan, jazz vocalist, City College
• Michio Kaku, physicist, City College
• Jane Katz, Olympian swimmer, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
• Alfred Kazin, writer and critic, Hunter College and Graduate Center
• Saul Kripke, philosopher, Graduate Center
• Irving Kristol, journalist, City College
• Paul Krugman, economist, Graduate Center
• Peter Kwong, journalist, filmmaker, activist, Hunter College and Graduate Center
• Nathan H. Lents, scientist, author, and science communicator, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
• Ben Lerner, writer, MacArthur Fellow, Brooklyn College
• Audre Lorde, poet and activist, City College, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
• Cate Marvin, poet, Guggenheim Fellowship winner, College of Staten Island
• Abraham Maslow, psychologist in the school of humanistic psychology, best known for his theory of human motivation which led to a therapeutic technique known as self-actualization, Brooklyn College
• John Matteson, historian and writer, Pulitzer Prize winner, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
• Maeve Kennedy McKean, attorney and public health official
• Stanley Milgram, social psychologist, Graduate Center
• Charles W. Mills, philosopher, Graduate Center
• June Nash, anthropologist, Graduate Center
• Ruth O'Brien, political scientist and disability studies writer, Graduate Center
• Denise O'Connor, Olympic foil fencer, Brooklyn College
• John Patitucci, jazz bassist, City College
• Itzhak Perlman, violinist, Brooklyn College^[74]
• Frances Fox Piven, political scientist, activist, and educator, Graduate Center
• Roman Popadiuk, US Ambassador to Ukraine, Brooklyn College
• Graham Priest, philosopher, Graduate Center
• Inez Smith Reid, Senior Judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, Brooklyn College
• Adrienne Rich, poet and activist, City College of New York^[75]
• David M. Rosenthal, philosopher, Graduate Center
• Mark Rothko (born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz), influential abstract expressionist painter, Brooklyn College
• Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., historian and social critic, Graduate Center
• Flora Rheta Schreiber, journalist, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
• Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, literary critic, Graduate Center
• Betty Shabazz, educator and activist, Medgar Evers College
• Mark Strand, United States Poet Laureate, Pulitzer Prize for Poetry-winning poet, essayist, and translator, Brooklyn College
• Dennis Sullivan, mathematician, Graduate Center
• Harold Syrett (1913–1984), president of Brooklyn College
• Katherine Verdery, anthropologist, Graduate Center
• Michele Wallace, women's studies and film studies, City College and Graduate Center
• Mike Wallace, historian and writer, John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Graduate Center
• Ruth Westheimer (better known as Dr. Ruth; born Karola Ruth Siegel), sex therapist, media personality, author, radio, television talk show host, and Holocaust survivor, Brooklyn College
• Elie Wiesel, novelist, political activist, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Presidential Medal of Freedom, and Congressional Gold Medal, City College
• C. K. Williams, poet, won Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, Brooklyn College
• Andrea Alu, engineer and physicist, Graduate Center
• Robert Alfano, physicist, discovered the supercontinuum, City College
• Branko Milanović, economist most known for his work on income distribution and inequality; a visiting presidential professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, an affiliated senior scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study and former lead economist in the World Bank's research department.
• Simi Linton, arts consultant, author, filmmaker, and activist. Focuses on disability in the arts, disability studies, and ways that disability rights and disability justice perspectives can be brought to bear on the arts.

Antisemitism at CUNY

Antisemitism has been a problem on CUNY campuses for many years. In recent years, there have been a number of antisemitic incidents on CUNY campuses, including:

• In March 2014, Brooklyn College settled the Title VI complaint that the Zionist Organization of America ("ZOA") had filed against its antisemitic discrimination.^[78]
• In 2017, a CUNY admin was recorded saying that there were too many Jews on campus.^[79]
• In 2020, a CUNY student was arrested for spray-painting antisemitic graffiti on a campus building.
• In 2021, a survey found that nearly one in four CUNY students had experienced antisemitism on campus. The survey also found that Jewish students were more likely to report feeling unsafe on campus than students of other faiths.^[80]
• In May 2021, a student at John Jay posted a picture of Adolf Hitler on Instagram with a message saying "We need another Hitler today." A group of Jewish students met with Karol Mason, the President of the college, who refused to condemn the action publicly.^[78]
• The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission cited CUNY in 2021 for failing to protect a Jewish professor after the PSC discriminated against him and subjected him to a hostile work environment on the basis of his Jewish faith.^[81]

CUNY has taken steps to address antisemitism on its campuses. In 2020, the university created a task force to combat antisemitism. The task force has developed a number of initiatives, including training for faculty and staff on how to identify and address antisemitism.^[82]