CUNY courts adult learners

Queens College offers programs with more flexible hours for adult students. Photo by Muhammad Ghouri via Flickr.

By Victoria Merlino

For most, going “back to school” conjures up images of teens with backpacks, No. 2 pencils and ringing school bells. 

CUNY, however, is trying to turn the back-to-school idea upside down, launching efforts to court older adult learners who may have dropped out of college in the past. 

“At CUNY, we are especially attuned to the fact that not every student travels the same path; sometimes priorities shift, and college is put on the backburner,” Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez said in a statement. 

“We are working to re-engage students whose life circumstances steered them away from their studies. Our message to them is straightforward: ‘Come back, and we will provide you with the support you need to complete your coursework and graduate.’ That message resonates particularly loudly with anyone trying to compete for a well-paying job without a college degree,” he continued.

While CUNY already serves more than 61,000 undergraduates who are 25 or older, the university system is trying to attract an even larger adult learner population. Approximately 75,000 students “stopped out” of CUNY in the past four years, meaning that they started college but then dropped out before finishing their degree. Across the state, 850,000 students left college before finishing their degrees during that time.

To attract these students, and students in similar situations, CUNY is working to develop programs and foster an environment for adults that considers financial, family, work or other reasons that may impede earning a degree.   

“As we look at the changing demands of the city’s labor force and economy — CUNY’s core responsibility is to help New Yorkers be successful and to prepare them for their economic future,” Angie Datta Kamath, CUNY University Dean for Continuing Education and Workforce Development, said in a statement. “We do that by meeting people where they are in their lives by tailoring affordable and comprehensive programs to their lifestyles and we’re doing just that with these adult-learner initiatives.”

CUNY hosted a summit on June 20 to better understand the adult-learning landscape. Part of the summit’s mission was to help refine CUNY’s long-term goals adult-learning goals, such as launching an online portal specifically for adult students who wish to enter the CUNY system, streamlining how prior life experiences and non-academic credentials factor toward a degree, and removing obstacles from CUNY’s financial aid policy. 

Some CUNY colleges already have programs in place to better assist adult learners. In Queens, for example, Queens College offers programs with flexible hours for adult students