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Graduation rates at CUNY’s two-year-colleges fell last year, despite increased efforts by the schools to combat perennially poor results.
The rates, which calculate the percentage of students earning an associate’s degree within three years of enrolling, dropped the most at Hostos Community College in the South Bronx — which went from 11.3 percent in 2010 to 8.2 percent in 2011.
Kingsborough Community in Brooklyn dropped 3.1 percentage points to 21.9 percent in 2011.
“It’s a tall task, but improving the rates has got to be a priority for the next five to 10 years in New York City, because if you don’t have an associate’s [degree], it’s almost a given that you’re going to end up in a low-wage, dead-end job,” said Jonathan Bowles, executive director of the Center for an Urban Future.
A big part of the problem at CUNY’s half-dozen two-year schools is the poor preparation of many freshmen, Bowles said.
Nearly 80 percent of city public- school graduates required remedial courses in reading, writing or math .
CUNY officials said that graduation rates — which don’t include students who transfer to the City University’s four-year programs — had actually climbed at all six community colleges in 2010 because of a new Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) initiative, which gets students to take courses full time in exchange for financial and academic support.
The first class of students to participate saw its graduation rates more than double, according to CUNY documents.
Despite this success, the initiative wasn’t funded for the class of 2011 — which officials cited as the reason for the drop in that year’s graduation rates.
“The data you have collected is an affirmation of success for the ASAP programs,” said CUNY spokesman Michael Arena.
He said the 2011 numbers show “a reduction precisely due to the fact that no ASAP cohort was funded for that year.”
Gwendolyn Thomas, a 20-year-old nursing student at Hostos Community College, said she can understand why the graduation rates are hard to improve.
“I always hear the same excuses — ‘I have to go to work,’ or ‘I couldn’t find a sitter,’ ” Thomas said of her classmates.
The rates are calculated as six-year results.
Graduation rates at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan dipped below 40 percent — to 39.4 percent — for the first time since 2006.
Among non-CUNY schools, NYU’s six-year graduation rates edged up to 86.4 percent, and Columbia University’s to 92.8.
Grad rates dropped to 60.9 percent at The New School and to 53.6 percent at Pace University last year.
Additional reporting by Dana Sauchelli