Metro

CUNY battles overcrowding as enrollments boom

Enrollment in the city’s public university system has soared in the last decade, creating a desperate race for space — and sometimes, seats too.

A total of 274,906 students packed into the City University of New York in the fall of 2018 — and the huge number is expected to be about the same this fall.

That’s up from 244,273 in 2008 — an increase of 30,633, or roughly the student population of the University of Iowa.

Amid the recession and a student debt crisis, CUNY’s community colleges saw double digit enrollment increases including 24 percent at LaGuardia in Queens and 16 percent at the Borough of Manhattan Community College.

Enrollment also climbed 10 percent at senior colleges like Baruch and 9 percent at Hunter, both in Manhattan.

But campuses haven’t all expanded to meet the need, and are now running out of room, documents show.

“The school does feel overcrowded, especially at moments when I am in the library trying to find a seat and do work,” Hunter student Daniel Walker told The Athenian, a student newspaper. “It can be overwhelming at times.”

There were 23,202 students at Hunter last fall and a 16 percent deficit in classroom space, according to CUNY documents.

There is a 20 percent space deficit at John Jay College despite a new $600 million, 625,000-square-foot, building that opened to house the midtown Manhattan college in 2011. Enrollment at John Jay has increased by 4 percent over 10 years.

The space crunch is the worst at BMCC which has a 40 percent deficit in classroom space. The school had 26,506 students in the fall semester, up 21 percent from 2008.

“We have about a third of our students attend evening or weekend (classes),” said Diane Walleser, the school’s vice president of enrollment management. “So we’re spreading that student population over seven days a week.”

Walleser said older students and those who work full-time appreciated the chance to take classes at off hours.

She said enrollment was project to remain fairly steady over the next few years.

While tuition at private colleges averaged about $36,000 in 2018-19 and could go as high as $60,000, it was $6,730 for CUNY’s senior colleges and $4,800 for community colleges.

CUNY has gotten better in recent years in providing academic support to students, but a big part of its attractiveness was financial, according to Cassie Magesis, director of college access and success for the Urban Assembly public schools.

“Our students are able to graduate college debt free if they go to CUNY,” she said.

Haris Khan, chair of the CUNY University Student Senate, said the system was “overcrowded at so many places” and that maintenance issues also put the squeeze on.

“Many times because of a lack of funding for maintenance and repairs, the places that do work also get shut off — bathrooms get closed, escalators don’t work and elevators stop functioning properly,” said Khan, who just graduated from City College. “The experience is pretty rough for students.”

And a $200 tuition hike, per student, approved by the CUNY board last week won’t go to expand facilities.

A CUNY spokesman acknowledged the crunch but said “there is no need to turn anyone away for want of seats or classroom space.”

Additional reporting by Isabella Simonetti