In 2025, CUNY met the demands of unprecedented change while expanding the University’s work to strengthen New York and help the greater city and state succeed.
The University accomplished this with the launch of a nation-leading effort to integrate career preparation into every undergraduate degree at CUNY and by building on its record as a standout institution for research that benefits the public. These successes come with enrollment growth for the third year in a row, record-breaking philanthropic support and a collection of rankings attesting to the University’s incomparable ability to uplift its graduates into the middle class and beyond.
The impact of these efforts and the role of The City University of New York were encapsulated in “Dear CUNY,” a powerful poem penned for National Poetry Month in April by Borough of Manhattan Community College student and 2024-25 National Youth Poet Laureate Stephanie Pacheco. She read an excerpt of the poem in .
Dear CUNY,
I don’t know of any other school that runs its city like you …
Everywhere I turn, every building is a student
Every train car is a classroom
CUNY students are the real mayor of New York
Every leader I need already lives in me
Every philosopher I know wears a tote bag and hangs out at my library
The University’s visibility across New York City only continued to grow in 2025: Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny at Bronx Community College, the CUNY community cheered together for “” in May, the University’s television station counted its 40th anniversary of educating New Yorkers and 23 St–Baruch College became the seventh subway station named for a CUNY college.
CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez celebrated the year’s wins during his 2025 State of the University address, saying, “All of this momentum — the enrollment gains, the expanded partnerships and the outreach to high school seniors — is about one thing: opening the doors of opportunity wider than ever before.”
Here are the top 10 ways CUNY built on its success in 2025.
1. Looking Beyond Graduation
For today’s students, it’s not enough to graduate — they need access to opportunity. That is why this fall, CUNY unveiled the nation’s most ambitious plan to ensure career preparation is baked into every part of the college experience. The initiative, CUNY Beyond, aims to triple the number of students who participate in paid internship opportunities and serve 180,000 CUNY graduates annually by the end of the decade. The effort will encourage students to identify career paths early; provide integrated academic and career advising; develop courses in consultation with industry partners; offer paid work-based learning opportunities; and expand the University’s engagement with employers.
2. Enrollment Rises for Third Year
CUNY Reconnect success story Jacqueline Higginson George graduated in 2025 at the age of 55.
CUNY saw its total enrollment increase by 4% across the system this fall, the third consecutive year of growth. Systemwide, the University welcomed about 10,000 more students this year. In total, CUNY enrolled about 21,000 additional students, a combined growth of 9% since Fall 2022.
This rise was bolstered by Governor Hochul’s free community college initiative, CUNY Reconnect, which provides free tuition, fees, books and supplies for adult learners pursuing their first college degree in a high demand field. Summer enrollment also grew this year, with a 6% year-over-year increase – over 68,000 students enrolled for in–person, hybrid or online classes for CUNY’s summer session.
3. Welcoming NYC Seniors
CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez and NYC Public Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos distribute “Welcome to CUNY” letters to Brooklyn Technical High School seniors.
Enrollment growth is also fueled by CUNY’s partnership with New York City Public Schools. For the third year in a row, CUNY sent “Welcome to CUNY” letters to all public high school seniors who are on track to graduate in 2026. For the first time, the letters were digitized and emailed directly to students and their families, allowing for greater personalization, including information about the number of college credits they had already earned at CUNY and how those credits would be applied for a range of degrees at CUNY.
4. A Seamless Transfer
CUNY also focused on how to best support students after they enroll. This year began with the rollout of the CUNY Transfer Initiative, a University-wide reform that enables students to transfer anywhere within the CUNY system without sacrificing credits toward their major. The change in part responded to a national trend where students who transfer from a community college to a four-year college on average lose a fifth of their credits, resulting in additional expenses and extended time to earn a bachelor’s degree.
5. Expanding Our Footprint
Mayor Eric Adams, CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, Hostos College President Daisy Cocco De Filippis and other dignitaries cut the ceremonial ribbon for the expansion of Hostos Community College into the Bronx General Post Office building.
In September, Mayor Adams and Chancellor Matos Rodríguez announced the transformation of the historic Bronx General Post Office building into a 190,000-square-feet state-of-the-art life science facility. The new space will serve as the college’s Allied Health and Natural Sciences Life Sciences Center and support additional programs such as surgical nursing, surgical technology, occupational therapy and home health care.
This comes as CUNY continues to make health care and life sciences a priority across the University. This past summer marked the official transformation of the CUNY School of Medicine into the University’s 26th constituent school. The first Match Day for the newly independent CUNY school saw the Class of 2025 achieve a 100% placement rate for its students into residency programs, above the national rate of 93.5%.
6. A Year of Generosity
Chancellor Matos Rodríguez and Lehman College President Fernando Delgado hold a large $50 million check from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott in honor of her donation to the college.
CUNY has been the beneficiary of incredible generosity in 2025, including a historic $50 million gift from the foundation of philanthropist MacKenzie Scott to Lehman College, the single largest donation in that college’s history. Over five years Scott has given nearly $130 million to five CUNY campuses, supporting scholarships, student support and career pathways.
A record-breaking 5,300 donors collectively gifted more than $4.1 million on CUNY Tuesday, an annual appeal aligned to the national GivingTuesday campaign centered around the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.
The Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation continued its trend of supporting the needs of CUNY students, awarding nearly $1.2 million to support CUNY Beyond, student emergency grants and the University’s food pantries.
7. 10,000 Students Hired
In October, CUNY and the New York Jobs CEO Council marked a major milestone in their five-year partnership, with nearly 10,000 CUNY students being hired by the city’s largest private sector employers. The announcement was a significant step toward the Council’s goal of hiring 100,000 New Yorkers, including 25,000 CUNY students, by 2030.
CUNY also announced a new agency initiative with the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), which will as field interviewers for the 2026 New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey. This is the first partnership of its kind between HPD and CUNY and gives students the unique opportunity to gain hands-on experience in community-centered data collection.
8. Supporting Immigrants
Launched this summer, CUNY Citizenship Now!’s CUNY Immigration Assistance Project (CIAP) is a rapid response legal resource for students, faculty, and staff who have been impacted by the ongoing changes to immigration policy. The program, funded through support from the Petrie Foundation and Robin Hood, provides free legal consultations on a variety of immigration issues such as student visa revocation or reinstatement, termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) or travel guidance.
9. Top of the Lists
The top three CUNY colleges on the Wall Street Journal’s Best Value Colleges list.
CUNY colleges have once again been recognized for their unmatched ability to provide a high quality, affordable education. CUNY took the top seven spots on the Wall Street Journal’s Best Value Colleges list, with Baruch College taking the top spot for the third consecutive year.
Similarly, Forbes released their list of the 25 Colleges with the Highest Payoff, where Brooklyn College took the top spot for the first time and CUNY had eight colleges total – more than any other university system. CUNY was also recognized for being a powerhouse of upward mobility by U.S. News & World Report, with 10 colleges being recognized.
CUNY faculty and alumni made waves this year as well – with five faculty and four alumni winning the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship, four scholars being appointed to the Academy of Arts and Sciences, and three university musicians each being nominated for a Grammy Award.
10. Growing Impactful Research
AI researchers from the City College Biomedical Engineering Department discuss images from a public MRI database.
The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education added Hunter College as a Research 2 institution, the first time that two CUNY colleges share the R2 designation alongside the CUNY Graduate Center, an R1 school. Carnegie introduced a new classification, resulting from an increased reflection on public purpose, which includes seven CUNY colleges. The University launched the CUNY Research Bridge Fund as a vital lifeline for faculty whose critical projects were disrupted by federal funding freezes.
The University also continued to grow its research endeavors. Examples include work at the Martin S. Spergel Initiative in Computational Sciences, the University’s artificial intelligence research project which is leveraging the system’s faculty expertise to turn CUNY into an AI hub, and research led by City College and Graduate Center professor Lucas Parra who worked with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to develop an artificial intelligence tool that detects tumors in breast MRIs, potentially identifying cancer up to a year earlier.
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