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CUNY imposes a hiring freeze and orders budget cuts as enrollment dips

CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez has imposed a hiring freeze and ordered budget cuts as enrollment continues to decline, The Post has learned.

In a memo to college presidents and deans sent earlier this month, Rodriguez said in order to close a deficit at the public system, each school had to find at least 5% in savings next year.

The university’s mid-year financial report, released in January, said the system would only end the year without a deficit because of federal stimulus money.

The report said expenditures were projected to increase by 5% this year while tuition revenues would decrease by 4%.

“While the pandemic-fueled enrollment decline has slowed, there are still significant declines across the colleges,” the report said.

Preliminary fall enrollment stood at 220,260, a 9% drop from the fall of 2021 when it was 243,000.

The entrance lobby of CUNY's main building.
Enrollment at CUNY has continued to drop into this year. Erik McGregor

“The City University of New York continues to look for cost-saving measures without cutting student services, efforts that will become increasingly important as federal pandemic stimulus money dries up,” CUNY spokesman Joseph Tirella said.

Tirella said CUNY recently launched an ad campaign called “Degrees Without Debt” to highlight the system’s affordability and attract students.

The cost-cutting measures are coming after some university honchos got fat raises in the fall.

 “The nerve of him to ask that after they raised each other salaries by more than 30% for some of them. That’s an insult to all of us,” one staffer said.