The City University of New York announced that it received $700,000 from Robin Hood to fund a multi-campus expansion of the school’s groundbreaking initiative to integrate career milestones into academic degree maps.
Robin Hood’s funding will allow CUNY to develop and provide roadmaps across 50 academic departments serving 25,000 students by fall 2024.
Dr. Félix V. Matos Rodríguez
Twenty departments have begun to add career milestones alongside course requirements on academic maps.
At the College of Staten Island, over the three years since its map was created, students in the computer science department experienced correlated increases of 43% in internship participation, of 144% in the number of full-time jobs secured upon graduation and of 34% in starting salaries over prior baseline figures.
“As our students navigate their way through college, many as the first in their families to do so, it is essential to connect their college studies to career goals,” said CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez.
“We know that higher education isn’t just about what students learn in the classroom, but about how they demonstrate their knowledge and prepare for their professional future,” continued Rodríguez. “We are grateful to Robin Hood for recognizing that this connection requires resources for colleges and for funding this important work to make sure our graduates thrive after they leave campus.”
CUNY has long served as a springboard into the middle class, putting low-income and first-generation college students on pathways to upward mobility and transforming their lives, said Richard R. Buery Jr., CEO of Robin Hood, New York City's largest local poverty-fighting philanthropy.
“That’s why we’ve invested more than $68 million in strengthening the CUNY system since 1988,” said Buery. “We are confident that our latest investment, expanding CUNY’s career mapping initiative, will expand that legacy of impact.”
