<p>"During a 1969 takeover of South campus, under threat of a riot, African American and Puerto Rican activists and their white allies demanded, among other policy changes, that City College implement an aggressive affirmative action program. At some point, campus protesters began referring to CCNY as “Harlem University.” The administration of the City University at first balked at the demands, but instead, came up with an open admissions or open-access program under which any graduate of a New York City high school would be able to matriculate either at City College or another college in the CUNY system. Beginning in 1970, the program opened doors to college to many who would not otherwise have been able to attend college. The program, however, came at the cost of City College’s and the University’s academic standing as well as New York City’s fiscal health.</p>
<p>City College began charging tuition in 1976. By the 1990s, CCNY stopped admitting and offering remedial classes to students who did not meet its academic entrance requirements. CUNY then enrolled less well prepared students in its community colleges."</p>
<p>Wikipedia ^</p>
<p>"The old faculty, unable to cope with this new population, simply foundered. Remedial classes became the norm for many students, taught by the mediocre faculty which in any case couldn’t fathom how to handle these students, and the results were hardly inspiring. Today CCNY still produces some well-educated graduates, especially in the sciences and engineering; the hard sciences and engineering have largely escaped the dilution. This is to say that one can easily fake it in ethnic studies, but not in electronics.</p>
<p>There are many liberal arts seniors who can’t write a paragraph, name their senators, or understand a political or economic article in The New York Times. Almost half the entering students require remedial courses in English or “College Skills,” a euphemism for reading…</p>
<p>The “secret” is out. Some companies even refuse to interview CCNY students as new hires; they have learned the hard way that the school’s liberal arts programs is an academic slum. Even so, as the old reputation was inflated, so the new one is underserved, and the handful of well-prepared graduates suffer as a result."</p>
<p>[City</a> on a Hill: Testing the American Dream at City College | Electronic News | Find Articles at BNET](<a href=“http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EKF/is_n2041_v40/ai_16036295/]City”>http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EKF/is_n2041_v40/ai_16036295/)</p>