HIGHER EDUCATION : Plan to Cut University Budget Stirs Admission Policy Debate in N.Y.

The City University of New York was once famed as the poor man’s Harvard. From Colin L. Powell to Irving Howe, hundreds of public officials, prominent scientists, academics and men and women of letters owe their education to the renowned, publicly financed system of higher learning.

The students--many kept out of the Ivy League by both lack of funds and the rigid ethnic quotas that existed before World War II--created a parallel world on CUNY campuses. “We made our dark little limbo . . . a school for the sharpening of wits,” author and critic Howe wrote in his memoirs about the informal student discussion groups that proliferated on his campus.

But as graduation ceremonies approach this spring, the 213,000-student system is being reminded that its glory days are over. Both New York Gov. George Pataki and New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani are planning to cut millions of dollars in state and city CUNY funds in an effort to solve their budget woes.

The cuts, which total more than $200 million out of the school’s $1.27-billion annual budget, are particularly devastating since a majority of CUNY’s entering students need either remedial math or reading classes, and a third come from families with incomes of less than $14,000 a year. Moreover, 41% of CUNY’s students were born outside the United States or in Puerto Rico.

University officials say the cuts will force hikes in tuition, cuts in financial aid and layoffs of faculty and staff. Government officials counter that CUNY’s leadership is engaging in scare tactics and could trim administrative budgets.

Perhaps more worrisome to university officials is that the budget battles appear to have sparked a renewed debate about CUNY’s direction, leading to fights over the school’s admission policies, which guarantee placement to any graduate of New York’s public high schools.

“Open access to college without standards is really a hoax. These kids are not going to make it,” charged Herman Badillo, a CUNY trustee and political ally of Giuliani’s. “Remedial education should be in high school or junior high school, not in college.”

There are no precise figures on how many CUNY students need remedial classes or fail to receive degrees. University officials say 40% of freshmen in senior colleges and 60% in community colleges need remedial help in math or English. But students admitted to the system via special programs aimed at the economically and academically disadvantaged are not counted in that number.

When the neoconservative Manhattan Institute used a broader definition, more than two-thirds of 1992’s freshman class were found to take at least one remedial class. The same study revealed that of the 26,000 students who entered CUNY in 1980, only 22% had graduated within five years.

CUNY officials say they track students over six years and do not include those who attend part time. The school claims 45% graduate.

“Your choice is whether you want to educate them to move into higher paying jobs or just leave them so they can’t partake in the American historical experience,” said W. Ann Reynolds, chancellor of the CUNY system’s six two-year community colleges and 12 four-year universities.

Historically, CUNY maintained strict standards for entry. Reform came in the 1970s after protesters charged that the system discriminated against minority students, who were often unable to gain admission. The school then implemented an open admission policy. All graduates of the city’s public schools are guaranteed a place in the system’s two-year colleges, and anyone graduating from high school with either a B average or in the top third of his or her class will be admitted to a senior college.

In 1994, 53% of students at the four-year colleges identified themselves as either black or Latino, a figure that jumped to 64% at community colleges. David Lavin, a professor at CUNY’s Lehman College, contends that the argument over student qualifications is a disguised attempt to counter the increasing multicultural nature of American society.

“If you cut back on students admitted, you are going to decimate minority admissions at the university,” Lavin said. “I hear an underlying agenda that these people should not go to college. It’s an attack on the ethnic diversity of New York City.”

“It’s racist against black and Hispanic students to automatically promote them if they are not qualified,” Badillo countered.

CUNY is addressing concerns about its student quality with its “college preparatory initiative,” which requires enrollees to take more rigid academic courses in high school.

“When there’s enough funding, liberal policies are more politically successful. In times of scarcity, then questions are raised: Is higher education an entitlement or a privilege? It’s about abundance and scarcity,” Lavin said.