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By: Benyamin Davidsons
A tech program aiming to secure high-paying tech jobs for minority public university students has been impressively effective—but may not have funding to continue. As reported by Crain’s NY, the CUNY 2x Tech program had been launched in 2018 with the goal of increasing the number of Black and Hispanic students in the City University of New York to land high paying tech jobs. Some half of the students studying science and tech in the CUNY system belong to these minority groups, but Blacks and Hispanics hold only 21% of positions in the tech sector, though they account for 43% of the city’s workforce.
Though the tech program was limited in scope, it already showed promise of success. New data on the program was released in a report by the Center for an Urban Future. The data showed that an impressive three-quarters of the students in the yearlong “tech prep” course landed a job or internship within five months of completing the course. CUNY 2x Tech had modest funding of only about $20 million, and is only active on seven of CUNY’s 25 campuses. Just 1,400 students are enrolled per year, compared to the 23,000 students at CUNY in tech-related majors. Still, the encouraging data showed that students enrolled in the internship program are three times more likely than their peers to land a tech job after graduating. Also, students who take the classes taught by tech professionals are twice as likely to get jobs, the school data shows.
The tech program’s initial funding had been committed by former Mayor Bill de Blasio, but it expired in 2022, leaving the individual colleges on the hook to fund the program on their own. Per Crain’s, in his January State of the City speech, Mayor Eric Adams proposed to expand CUNY 2x Tech to more campuses- particularly at community colleges. Since then, however, no news of the program funding has been announced, though a mayoral spokesman said we could expect to hear more regarding the matter in the near future. Expanding CUNY 2x Tech would be part of “a broader effort to create a new, successful program and develop new vehicles for accessible career pathways for New Yorkers,” said Bradley Weekes, the mayor’s deputy communications director, in a statement. “We thank the Center for Urban Future for highlighting this program’s success and look forward to sharing more details on our expansion plans.”
For now, however, no new funding has been allocated to the program, and the previous funding already expired. Eli Dvorkin, the report’s co-author, said the Adams administration and the City Council should give ear to its findings as they tackle next year’s budget. The city is inundated due to the migrant crisis, and painful budget cuts are expected across the board. CUNY, however, should be set apart as an investment worth preserving, said Dvorkin, editorial and policy director at Center for an Urban Future. “If New York is going to make substantially more progress in expanding access to tech careers—the part of the economy that has added more good jobs than any other — then we’re going to have to tap into CUNY to do it,” said Dvorkin.
The tech sector is continuing its growth in New York. As per Crain’s, New York added more than 119,000 tech jobs from 2010 to 2022, marking a whopping 146 percent increase.
