BMCC Ranks #3 in the United States for Economic Mobility

Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC/CUNY) had the third highest mobility rate among two-year colleges in the United States according to data from “Mobility Report Cards: The Role of Colleges in Intergenerational Mobility,” a report analyzed by The Chronicle of Higher Education this month.

The report, released by the Equality of Opportunity Project in early 2017, shows that 41 percent of BMCC students moved up two or more out of five income quintiles—or categories used to assess household income. 

The College’s mobility ranking is based on a comparison between the BMCC students’ parents’ income in the 1990s— when the students were between 15 and 19 years old—and the students’ individual income in 2014, when they were around age 34.

BMCC Supports Student Upward Mobility

The Chronicle of Higher Education analysis shows that BMCC students—whose parents’ household incomes were in the lowest 20 percent in the late 1990s—represented a 6.14-percent share of students in this age cohort who ended up among the top 20 percent of individual earners in 2014.

BMCC was one of 12 CUNY colleges to rank among the top ten nationally on the Chronicle of Higher Education list. BMCC was number one among the five two-year CUNY colleges listed.

To do well on this measure, colleges had to be both accessible to low-income students and to foster success among them. 

BMCC Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs Karrin E. Wilks says the College’s economic mobility ranking is a point of pride.

“The data reflect our historic access mission as well as our unwavering commitment to student success and to advancing equity and social justice. All faculty and staff are to be commended for their contributions to transforming the lives of our students, and for helping to realize our strategic vision that BMCC will be a premier community college nationwide,” said Wilks.