“Open the doors to all, let the children of the rich and the poor take their seats together and know of no distinction save that of industry, good conduct, and intellect.” These were the words proclaimed by Townsend Harris, founder of the Free Academy (now CCNY), on March 15, 1847. Fast forward over 165 years later though, and unfortunately it would appear that this wish has largely been unattained by our top city colleges. And that an enrollment of our city’s poorest students at our public colleges, instead, has been at a continual decline over the last decade, which is a statistic that pertains to at most, our city’s Black and Latino students.
But what is it that is causing this growing rejection for the majority of our public high school students in this city? Well factors such as raised admission standards, a decrease in public funding, and higher tuition costs are just some factors that cast maturation to this ethic disparity issue. And while Black and Latino students reflect about 70 percent of the student body of public high schools, it is a disappointment for us to witness a disproportionate amount of those non-white students that actually end up making it to the top city colleges, such as Baruch College.
In fact, while Black and Latinos reflect over fifty percent of the people in our city, a little bit less than 27 percent of such students (taken from the 2015 Baruch Fact Sheet) are actually admitted to Baruch College; which should then be seen as a significant decrease of the past greater than a third percentage of Black and Latinos that composed the student body of Baruch in just 2001.
But why isn’t anything being done in order to reverse this decline of diversity at our top colleges? Well to Dr. Arthur Lewin, a member of the Advisory Board of the Black Male Initiative at Baruch College, a part of this issue is that most of the organizations or groups that are set out to promote the underrepresented student bodies at our public colleges, really only promote the “public relations” of our city’s colleges, rather than actually improving the success or experiences of the students that they are supposed to reflect, according to Lewin.
So while organizations such as the Black Male Initiative do increase the chances of success after college for a greater number of Black and Latinos that make use of this program when compared to the students who do not; “because the school is not really serious about the Black Male initiative, nor is CUNY,” according to Lewin, which means that hardly enough is being done to progress the students who represent over half of our city’s ethnic groups. “It’s like putting on a windbreaker or sweater and going out to a blizzard, it’s almost next to nothing,” says Lewin, when asked if he feels if organizations such as BMI are doing enough to support underrepresented students.
And this is bad, because creating more diverse city colleges in reality “benefits the majority of the people in New York City, because they are Black and Latino but they are being excluded from the City University” expresses Lewin.
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