Exclusive | CUNY graduation rates plummet in 5-year slide: Its a two-pronged problem

Graduation rates have plummeted by nearly 10% at CUNY schools in the past five years, troubling new data shows.The graduation rates for associate degrees awarded at the City University of New York’s community colleges, which are designed to be completed in two years by full-time students, dropped from 38.9% in 2022 to 35.5% in 2026, according to CUNY records provided in the Mayor’s Management Report.The grad rate for students at CUNY’s four-year undergradate colleges meanwhile steadily fell from 62% in 2022 to 55.6% in the past academic year.Graduation rates for CUNY students in the system’s prestigious special three-year undergraduate Accelerated Study in Associate Programs — known as ASAP — declined even more, from 44% in 2022 to 34.5% in 2026 — or nearly 22%.CUNY’s ASAP is a nationally recognized program that provides students with additional personal, academic and financial support to try to boost its graduation rates within three years.“It’s a two-pronged problem,” said former CUNY trustee Jeffrey Wiesenfeld to The Post.“The New York City school system standards dropped dramatically.

Most of the CUNY students come from the city public schools,” Wiesenfeld said.He also claimed that CUNY has relaxed its own standards after they were raised during the era of Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg and Gov.George Pataki.CUNY — which consists of 26 institutions:11 four-year undergraduate colleges, seven community colleges and eight graduate, honors, and professional schools offering more than 70 doctoral programs — claimed in its report that the lingering effects of the pandemic are at least partly to blame.“[The] graduation-rate declines are still affected by the COVID-19 pandemic disruption and also reflect changes in the freshman class composition,” the sprawling higher-education system said.A spokesman added that the “rate remains higher than a decade ago despite the profound disruption that the freshmen who began in 2019 fa...