The City University of New York has launched a big effort to get back in touch with 10,000 former students who dropped out before getting their degrees — and lure them back to school.
The new initiative, called “CUNY Reconnect,” employs a team of outreach workers to contact students who earned some college credits, but no degree — a group that may be struggling with debt without the increased earning potential that comes with completing college.
“Returning to college after a significant break can be daunting,” said CUNY Chancellor Félix Matos Rodriguez. “By creating a welcoming and personalized readmission process, we can ease that transition for many thousands who stand to benefit and put them on the pathway to life-changing opportunity.”
The idea for the mass outreach came from a paper by the Center for an Urban Future, which last year estimated that nearly 700,000 working-age New York City residents had completed some college classes without graduating — a group that’s disproportionately Black, Hispanic and female.
Many of those New Yorkers need just a few more credits to obtain their degrees, the analysis found, meaning they’ve already taken on much of the financial burden of attending college but aren’t reaping the rewards that come with a degree. City residents who’ve completed an associate’s degree earn an average of $7,000 more per year than those who have taken some college classes but didn’t graduate, according to the center’s analysis of Census data.
The situation likely became even more dire during the pandemic, as enrollment at CUNY’s community colleges dropped sharply, in keeping with national trends.
Researchers argue that targeting outreach to students who have already partially completed their degrees is an obvious way to boost the city’s college attainment rates and jumpstart an economy still recovering from the pandemic. They pointed to a similar program in Tennessee that showed success.
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (D-Queens) pushed to include $4.4 million in funding for the initiative in the city budget.
Adams said she hopes the outreach can “create economic opportunities for New Yorkers, especially Black and Latina women and other women of color who disproportionately comprise students with college credits but no degree.”
The program has already kicked off with an initial push to reach 10,000 students out of an estimated pool of 100,000 former CUNY students who dropped out before finishing their degrees. Leading the direct outreach is a team of 50 “navigators” trained to support the potential enrollees through the logistical, academic and financial hurdles to reregistering.
New potential signups can be awarded credit based on past work experience.
The outreach comes as national and statewide efforts to reduce the cost of college pick up steam. The federal government is rolling out a debt relief program that will forgive between $10,000 and $20,000 in debt for millions of students, while the state government is expanding its financial aid program to cover part-time students.
Neshaly Perez dropped out of Bronx Community College during the height of the pandemic and had no plans of returning — until she recently got an email from a CUNY Reconnect navigator.
“It wasn’t even in my field of vision for the future,” Perez, 27, said of reenrolling. “But once I got the email, I was like, ‘yeah.'”
Perez said that when she replied to the email, she was immediately put in touch with a navigator who provided both logistical support and encouragement.
“I think that’s super helpful when you’re feeling lost, to have someone that can guide you,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting the reassurance. The person I got was super kind.”
As a result, Perez is now back at Bronx Community College as a full-time student studying sociology — and has just five classes to complete to get her degree.
She’s not yet sure what she wants to do for a career, but hopes the degree will help with whatever line of work she pursues.
“That’s a good feeling, to get back on my feet,” she said.
