College Now History
COLLEGE NOW is a nationally recognized school-to-college partnership between Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, New York, a branch of the City University of New York (CUNY), and 27 New York City public high schools. The program offers rigorous freshman-level college credit and developmental coursework without cost to high school juniors and seniors at their home schools to:
| 1. | Increase their awareness of the demands of higher education. |
| 2. | Prepare them for post-secondary education without remediation. |
| 3. | Facilitate a smooth transition between the two educational systems. |
At
the time it was conceived in the fall of 1983, high schools and colleges rarely
collaborated. The program became operational in spring 1984 when it recruited
its first class of 449 students at four local high schools. It was immediately
successful and the program expanded over the next five years to 17 schools.
Today it operates in 26 public high school scattered throughout two boroughs
of the city and serves over 3,500 students a semester.
In 1998, in response to the issues of declining high school academic performance and intensive demands on remediation at CUNY, the university replicated the College Now program at its five other community colleges. In February of 2000, the Chancellors of CUNY and the New York City Board of Education announced the creation of a city-wide educational collaborative called the College Now Initative to increase student access to the College Now program and expand its mission to include higher standards of academic achievement for all public high school students. This historic school-college partnership dramatically expanded the operations of the College Now program to include the university's 11 senior colleges. It also increased the number of school partnerships from 56 New York City high schools to over 160. The eventual goal of the Initative is to reach all high schools and serve 45,000 students through the city.