The city continued to cut CUNY’s budget, even after the introduction of tuition. To reduce city spending for the 1977-78 fiscal year, Beame announced that the city would cut CUNY’s budget by $90 million and end its financing of CUNY’s senior, four-year colleges. While New York State Governor Carey offered to partially fund the senior colleges, this still left CUNY’s budget about $50 million short. The senior colleges, which included Baruch College, City College, Hunter College, Brooklyn College, and Queens College, along with others, then needed to devise a new financial plan to reduce spending and increase revenue.

The Citizen’s Budget Commission, INC. published the following report with a breakdown of the possible short-term financing options available to CUNY.

Short-Term Options for Financing the City University, 1977 February. Jack Bigel Papers. Baruch College Archives, William and Anita Newman Library. Click here for full item record.

The five options outlined in the report above for increasing revenue were:

1. Tuition Increase
2. Wage Reductions
3. Faculty Layoffs
4. Increase Number of Part-Time Faculty Members
5. Merging or Closing Colleges

The report concluded that exclusively relying on one of the above options to resolve CUNY’s financing issues was not optimal. Rather, “the best solution for successful continued operation of the City University senior colleges lies in exercising all or some of the above options in combination.”¹

As outlined in the Progress Report on the 1976 Master Plan below, the CUNY schools ultimately executed all five options: tuition increased to $775 and $925 for undergraduates; full-time and part-time faculty and staff positions were eliminated; wages were cut; and colleges were merged.

Progress Report on the 1976 Master Plan, 1978. Baruch College Reports. Baruch College Archives, William and Anita Newman Library. Click here for full item record.

As a result of these short-term financing options and the university’s efforts to reduce spending, CUNY profoundly changed for the students, faculty, and staff. Along with the plummeting enrollment numbers, the number of part-time students also dropped significantly. While there was financial aid available to part-time students in 1976 during the first year of tuition, this program was eliminated in the 1977-1978 academic year because of state restrictions. With the new and increasing tuition costs, a significant number of part-time students had to drop-out or choose to attend university full-time -which for many was not a feasible option. This created an economic barrier, which disproportionately affected older students with jobs and/or parental responsibilities who could only attend school part-time.² The Board of Education also instituted University-wide testing in reading, writing, and math upon entry and demanded students transitioning from community colleges to the four-year colleges complete proficiency exams.³ This created additional barriers to a college education and further undermined the ideals of the open admissions policy.⁴

To cut spending, CUNY also began scrutinizing the academic programs offered by the university, evaluating programs based on quality, resource allocation, cost effectiveness, and workforce needs.⁵ Underperforming programs were identified, some of which were consolidated and/or eliminated. Those eliminated included:

• Nursing
• Physical Therapy
• Dental and Orthopedic Assisting
• Industrial Technologies
• Teacher Education

Programs noted for future review and additional scrutiny were the performing arts and the foreign language programs.⁶

For faculty, the budget cuts lead to more layoffs and wage reductions. The University implemented a strategic retrenchment policy, which primarily impacted the non-tenured professors, and because “the retrenchment policies were substantially based on seniority, many younger faculty members, including women and members of a minority group, were released.”⁷ CUNY’s part-time faculty were also dismissed, so the “balance that is desire among full-time and part-time, tenured and non-tenured, mature and younger faculty has been seriously eroded by the changes that have been wrought at the University.”⁸ The hiring of new faculty members was also restricted at this time, so there was little opportunity to diversify CUNY’s faculty following these layoffs.

The city’s budgets cuts also impacted CUNY’s ongoing and planned construction projects. The City University Construction Fund (CUCF), a public benefit corporation, made an arrangement with the New York State Dormitory Authority, under which the Dormitory Authority financed the construction projects through the sales of notes or bonds and leased the facilities back to the CUCF. In 1975, because of the fiscal crisis, the Dormitory Authority was no longer permitted to sell notes or bonds, and CUNY’s senior colleges construction work was then suspended. The report below outlines the CUCF’s 1979 Financial Plan and the status of the halted construction projects.

Report on CUNY Construction Fund FY 1979 Financial Plan, 1978 October 4. Jack Bigel Papers. Baruch College Archives, William and Anita Newman Library. Click here for full item record.

To save additional money, CUNY Chancellor Robert Kibbee also proposed closing/merging schools, including Hostos Community College and John Jay College, and reducing schools, like Medgar Evers and York College, from four-year to two-year institutions. In response to these proposals, students, faculty, and staff members organized to oppose these cutbacks – some of which were more successful than others. Ultimately, only the proposed merger that happened was Richmond College with Staten Island Community College. Hostos Community College was not merged with Bronx Community College and John Jay College was not merged with Baruch College. However, Medgar Evers was reduced from a senior college to community college.

For more information about the Save Hostos Movement, see this exhibition page.

---

1. Citizens Budget Commission, “Short-Term Options for Financing the City University,” February 1977, vii. ↩︎
2. CUNY Board of Higher Education, “Progress Report on the 1976 Master Plan,” 1978, 14-15.  ↩︎
3. CUNY Board of Higher Education, “Progress Report on the 1976 Master Plan,” 24-25.  ↩︎
4. In an oral history interview conducted by Douglas Medina, Stuart Schaar, Professor Emeritus of Middle East History at Brooklyn College, theorizes that the introduction of tuition a mere six years after the start of CUNY’s Open Admissions policy was the beginning of a larger trend spreading across America: the privatization of the public sector. ↩︎
5. CUNY Board of Higher Education, “Progress Report on the 1976 Master Plan,” 22.  ↩︎
6. CUNY Board of Higher Education, “Progress Report on the 1976 Master Plan,” 23.  ↩︎
7. CUNY Board of Higher Education, “Progress Report on the 1976 Master Plan,” 26. ↩︎
8. CUNY Board of Higher Education, “Progress Report on the 1976 Master Plan,” 26.  ↩︎