The

City University of New York The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven Upper divis ...

(CUNY) system is the public

university system A university system is a set of multiple affiliated universities and colleges that are usually geographically distributed. Typically, all member universities in a university system share a common component among all of their various names. Usually, ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. CUNY consists of 11 senior colleges, 7 community colleges,1 honors college and 7 postgraduate institutions. , CUNY is the United States' largest urban public university, with an enrollment of over 274,000 students. CUNY and the

State University of New York The State University of New York (SUNY, , ) is a system of public colleges and universities in the State of New York. It is one of the largest comprehensive system of universities, colleges, and community colleges in the United States. Led by c ...

(SUNY) are different university systems, despite the fact that both are public institutions that receive funding from the state of New York. The 64 SUNY and 25 CUNY campus institutions are part of

University of the State of New York The University of the State of New York (USNY, ) is the state of New York (state), New York's governmental umbrella organization for both public and private institutions in New York State. The "university" is not an educational institution: it i ...

(USNY). USNY is the governmental umbrella organization for most education-related institutions and many education-related personnel (both public and private) in the state of New York, and which includes, as a component, the

New York State Education Department The New York State Education Department (NYSED) is the department of the New York state government responsible for the supervision for all public schools in New York and all standardized testing, as well as the production and administration o ...

. All of these schools are

accredited Accreditation is the independent, third-party evaluation of a conformity assessment body (such as certification body, inspection body or laboratory) against recognised standards, conveying formal demonstration of its impartiality and competence to ...

by the

Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools The Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools (Middle States Association or MSA) was a voluntary, peer-based, non-profit association that performed peer evaluation and regional educational accreditation, accreditation of public and priva ...

, in addition to other program-specific accreditations held by individual campuses, such as

Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, also known as AACSB International, is an American professional organization. It was founded as the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business in 1916 to provide accreditation to ...

and

Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs The Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP), formerly the Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs, is a U.S. organization offering accreditation services to business programs focused on teaching and learni ...

History

CUNY's history dates back to the formation of the Free Academy in 1847 by

Townsend Harris Townsend Harris (October 4, 1804 – February 25, 1878) was an American merchant and politician who served as the first United States Consul General to Japan. He negotiated the "Harris Treaty" between the US and Japan and is credited as the di ...

. The school was fashioned as "a Free Academy for the purpose of extending the benefits of education gratuitously to persons who have been pupils in the common schools of the … city and county of New York". The Free Academy later became the City College of New York, the oldest institution among the CUNY colleges. From this grew a system of seven senior colleges, four hybrid schools, six community colleges, as well as graduate schools and professional programs. CUNY was established in 1961 as the umbrella institution encompassing the municipal colleges and a new graduate school. Over the years, the configuration of the institutions of CUNY has changed. The current

College of Staten Island The College of Staten Island (CSI) is a public university in Staten Island, New York. It is one of the 11 four-year senior colleges within the City University of New York system. Programs in the liberal arts and sciences and professional studi ...

, the largest CUNY school by land area, is the result of a merger between Richmond College (

upper-division college An upper division college or university is one that requires applicants to have already completed their first two years of undergraduate study at another institution. These institutions traces their roots to educational ideas put forward in the ...

founded in 1965) and Staten Island Community College (lower-division college founded in 1955).

Lehman College Lehman College is a public college in the Bronx borough of New York City. Founded in 1931 as the Bronx campus of Hunter College, the school became an independent college within CUNY in September 1967. The college is named after Herbert H. Lehma ...

was formerly a

branch campus A satellite campus or branch campus or regional campus is a campus of a university or college that is physically at a distance from the original university or college area. This branch campus may be located in a different city, state, or countr ...

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...

that was known as Hunter-in-the-Bronx. The City College is the oldest institution of CUNY, having been founded in 1847. Established in 2018, the School of Labor and Urban Studies is the newest addition to the University.

Institutions

Notes

* Each college's founding year is linked to the category of all schools founded in that year * Enrollment and Gender ratio data not provided for these units.

References

External links

CUNY website
{{featured list * * New York, CUNY Education in New York City New York State Education Department

New York, CUNY