On Monday, the glorious halls of the New York Public Library hosted a remarkable inauguration: More than 300 New Yorkers began their college education as the first-ever students of CUNY’s New Community College.
What’s new — and most notable — isn’t just its campus overlooking Bryant Park, or merely the fact that it’s the first new community college in the city in more than four decades. Nor is it necessarily its president, Scott Evenbeck, its faculty or its classrooms.
Rather, what makes this development uniquely significant is its novel approach to community-college education.
Community colleges are the backbone of higher education. They enroll close to half of all college students in America. They provide an affordable entry to advanced study and better career opportunities for graduates.
Almost one in five Americans who earned doctorates in 2009 attended a community college at some point; about 50 percent of bachelor’s degree recipients in science, engineering and health attended a community college.
Unfortunately, far too few community-college students manage to complete their studies and graduate with an associate degree — an essential passport to enriched personal and professional lives.Only 16 percent of urban community-college students earn a degree within three years.
It’s not enough to talk about access to college; it is the attainment of a college degree that will most help students.Fostering student success requires more than an open door to a community college; what’s been needed is a wholesale reimagining of community-college education.
Which is why CUNY’s New Community College was created specifically to help students graduate — and to equip them with the skills and credentials they will need to flourish in the marketplace.
Our new school is designed to advance students’ academic progress through such innovations as a summer “bridge” program, intensive peer mentoring, a common first-year curriculum (with a signature “City Seminar” that focuses on New York City), clearly defined degree pathways and a teaching model that links classroom learning to practical career experiences.
The goal is to boost degree-attainment rates, especially among those students least likely to persevere when it comes to higher education.
Much of the new college’s curriculum is based on CUNY’s enormously successful Accelerated Study in Associate Programs initiative, or ASAP. A partnership with the city’s Center for Economic Opportunity, ASAP features full-time study, consolidated block schedules, small class sizes, comprehensive college-guidance and career-development services and financial incentives.
And it’s worked: ASAP students at CUNY’s six existing community colleges graduate at double the rate of their non-ASAP counterparts — and at more than three times the national three-year graduation rate for urban community colleges.
This framework is the model for the New Community College.Everyone at the college — from its president to its faculty to its peer mentors — is committed to reenvisioning traditional college structures and engaging students through new approaches to learning.
And it’s won vital support.Mayor Bloomberg backed the ASAP initiative from its inception, as well as the idea of the first new community college in the city in more than 40 years. Gov. Cuomo and the state Board of Regents gave their stamp of approval. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is coming up with key funding.
We are certain that our New Community College will enable us to carry on CUNY’s long tradition of helping students reap the tremendous benefits of a college degree.
It is a resounding reaffirmation of CUNY’s core mission: promoting self-improvement through learning, achievement and a pathway to a better future, for families — and the city they live in.
Matthew Goldstein is chancellor of The City University of New York.