Objective

To determine whether the City University of New York (CUNY) is effectively matching course offerings to student demand. Our audit covered the three academic years ended June 30, 2019.

About the Program

CUNY is a 25-campus university system comprising 11 senior colleges; 7 community colleges; and 7 graduate, honors, and professional colleges. CUNY serves the five boroughs of New York City. As of fall 2019, approximately 162,000 full-time undergraduate degree-seeking students were enrolled at CUNY’s 25 campuses.

Historically, many first-time students studying toward a bachelor’s degree would earn that degree in four years of full-time study. However, over the past 30 years, time to degree has increased for many students. Based on the most recently published CUNY data, many full-time first-time CUNY college students do not graduate within four to six years of enrollment – just 30 percent received their bachelor’s degree after four years, and 53 percent received their bachelor’s degree after six years. The increased time to degree is influenced by factors such as the pathways students take, institutional resources available to students, difficulty in registering for courses, available financial resources, and the need to take remedial courses.

Our audit focused on the five senior colleges with the largest enrollment, one in each borough, as of the fall 2017 semester. These five colleges serve approximately 52,500 full-time students. As of fall 2019, the annual tuition was $6,930 for New York State residents.

Key Findings

• CUNY officials attribute low graduation rates to socioeconomic factors that are outside CUNY’s control, such as outside employment and academic readiness. However, in a 2018 CUNY Student Experience Survey, 5,067 of the 14,479 responding students (35 percent) indicated they were unable to register for one or more desired (required or elective) courses, thus delaying their graduation.
• We determined that CUNY’s Central Office has not established university-wide policies and procedures to address the scheduling of courses. Moreover, there is no system-wide policy specifying when additional course sections should be added. Instead, departments at each college decide which courses and sections should be offered each semester.
• We interviewed 25 department officials at the five senior colleges and were told that course schedules are established using enrollment data from prior semesters. In addition, 13 of 25 officials told us they do not offer online or hybrid courses (courses encompassing both classroom and online formats) because they believe such courses are unnecessary.
• We sent surveys to 5,000 randomly selected students, and 252 of the 678 responding students (37 percent) complained that they could not register for a desired course. More than half of the 252 students indicated the course they could not register for was required for their academic major and necessary to earn their degree. Students who are unable to register for or complete desired courses may take longer to graduate, costing them time and exhausting their financial resources, including financial aid grants, which could ultimately cause them to drop out of school.
• Forty-nine of the 172 students (29 percent) we interviewed at the five campuses indicated that academic advisement was not beneficial to them. Several students across several majors stated they were sometimes incorrectly registered or advised to take courses that were not necessary for their academic program, causing their graduation to be delayed. Additionally, students complained that not enough advisors were available for some majors and advisement days and hours were extremely limited with long wait times to see an advisor.
• We also determined that administrators at CUNY’s Central Office and at the five sampled colleges do not comprehensively track students’ use of their financial aid or monitor their graduation rates. Information compiled by CUNY at our request showed that approximately 4,923 students had exhausted their financial aid during the three academic years ended June 30, 2019 – 1,533 of the 4,923 students (31 percent) ultimately dropped out (did not graduate from CUNY).

Key Recommendations

• Ensure that CUNY students have opportunities to register for elective courses and courses required for their programs of study.
• Require that department officials responsible for scheduling courses formally survey students in their respective departments about required and elective courses.
• Improve advisor training to keep them up to date on degree requirements.
• Track students’ progress toward graduation and their financial aid eligibility. Provide appropriate and timely academic advisement to those students while alerting them of the danger of exhausting their financial aid eligibility.