CUNY Graduates Struggle in NYC's Shrinking Entry-Level Job Market: How to Bridge the Gap

The Challenge for CUNY Graduates

The City University of New York (CUNY), the nation's largest urban public university system, has made significant strides in boosting graduation rates and helping its predominantly low-income students move toward the middle class. However, a recent report from the Center for an Urban Future reveals that despite these gains, many graduates are struggling to secure well-paying local jobs.

A Shrinking Job Market

The report highlights a 37.4% decline in entry-level job postings in New York City since 2022, with paid internship postings down 37.1% from pre-pandemic levels. CUNY, which spans 25 campuses and serves over 200,000 students, is particularly affected. Only 12% of undergraduates complete a paid internship, far below the national average of 57%.

The Need for Stronger Employer Partnerships

In this challenging hiring environment, city and state leaders must prioritize expanding employer partnerships, especially with the private sector. Eli Dvorkin, editorial and policy director at the Center for an Urban Future, emphasizes that the issue isn't academic quality but rather access to work experience and professional networks.

"CUNY is a really complex organization, and that ecosystem can be challenging for employers," Dvorkin said. "Instead of having no wrong door, it often feels like there's no door at all, and many employers still don't understand how to tap into the system."

Graduation Success vs. Career Struggles

While CUNY has doubled the three-year graduation rate at its community colleges over the past decade, many graduates still face difficulties finding careers aligned with their degrees. Approximately one in 10 alumni ends up in retail or food service five years after graduation, rising to 13% for community college graduates.

CUNY students compete in a flooded labor market with about 100,000 other college graduates in New York City each year, including those from prestigious institutions like NYU and Columbia, as well as experienced professionals recently laid off.

Promising Initiatives and Scaling Challenges

CUNY has launched programs like CUNY Beyond, a systemwide effort to prioritize career exploration and outcomes under Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez. However, these efforts currently reach only a fraction of students, highlighting the need for significant expansion.

"The job of city and state policymakers now isn't to invent new methods of connecting CUNY students to careers, but to invest in scaling up what's already working," Dvorkin stated.

Key Barriers to Employer Engagement

Based on over 80 interviews with employers, faculty, administrators, and nonprofit leaders, the report identifies seven major barriers:

1. Navigating CUNY's 25 campuses is confusing and time-consuming for employers.
2. Career services are siloed from academics, with staff often overwhelmed, serving more than 1,100 students each.
3. Hybrid academic-career advisers exist in only about 40 of CUNY's 450 departments.
4. Students lack early career exploration opportunities, with most options being extracurricular rather than embedded in required courses.
5. Nonprofit and intermediary partners with strong industry ties are underutilized.
6. CUNY lacks a modern, systemwide CRM platform to track and coordinate employer engagement across campuses.
7. Many campuses don't use modern employment platforms like Handshake, relying instead on fragmented job boards or third-party services.

The Path Forward

Dvorkin suggests that Mayor Zohran Mamdani leverage his political capital to encourage private sector employers to partner with CUNY and create meaningful career pathways for students.

"If the mayor were to come out and say, 'The city of New York is going to double down on its efforts to hire CUNY students and create work-based learning opportunities, and we want other major employers to join us,' I think that would be a powerful message that would resonate," Dvorkin said.

Given the historic growth in graduation rates, it's time for city and state leaders to shift focus from college success to career success. These actions could make a meaningful difference in expanding access to good jobs for New Yorkers from low-income backgrounds.