It’s hard not to be amazed and charmed by Miguel Cruz (’55), the College’s and City University’s oldest alum. Active, positive, and independent, the 103-year-old manages a packed, five-days-a-week social schedule; plays guitar and billiards; drives a car; travels; connects with friends and family via e-mail and Skype; and even has his own Facebook page! Many assume he is 20-plus years younger than he is, including the doctors he seldom has to visit.
But nothing says more about Cruz than his tenacious pursuit of a college degree. That story begins in Quebradillas, Puerto Rico, where his father farmed and where his mother wanted better for her seven children. “She had one idea,” he recalls, “that all of her children would be professionals. She was the biggest influence on my life.”
Cruz enrolled at the University of Puerto Rico but left in 1935, after political violence erupted on campus. A year later the business-minded Cruz emigrated to the U.S., enrolling at City College Downtown (today’s Baruch) in 1938. “It was the college for me,” he says.
Cruz expected that studying part time—which he did by necessity while working full time as a taxicab driver and bookkeeper—would slow his progress. But he hadn’t counted on WWII: his 1942 induction derailed his studies for four years. Following his discharge in 1946, far pleasanter events—marriage and the birth of his two children—also limited his study time as he worked to secure better jobs to support his growing family.
By the time Cruz earned his BBA—more than two decades after first enrolling in college—he had already begun what would be a 23-year career with the NYC Housing Authority, which ended when he reached the then-mandatory retirement age of 65. Not ready for a life of leisure, he continued to work as an administrator, tax preparer, and entrepreneur over the next two decades, retiring in his mid-eighties.
Summing up the pursuit of his degree and perhaps his philosophy, Cruz says, “It was not easy . . . But once you have something in your mind, you will find a way to make it happen. Determination, oh yes.”
—Diane Harrigan
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