CUNY’s Computer Science Growing Pains

After years of explosive growth, computer science appears to have reached an inflection point. Recent data shows that undergraduate computer and information sciences enrollment at four-year institutions fell 8.4 percent this year; some researchers have suggested AI anxiety and a difficult entry-level tech market are contributing to the decline.

The City University of New York is experiencing a similar shift after a decade-long computer science boom. A new report from the Center for an Urban Future found that enrollment surged by 146 percent from 2014 to 2024, even as overall CUNY enrollment declined. But new data provided by the university system shows computer science enrollment fell 15 percent between 2024 and 2025, from 10,330 to 8,819 students, while CUNY’s total enrollment increased.

The reversal comes as entry-level tech jobs in New York City have fallen by 49 percent since 2022, raising new questions about what computer science education should look like as AI reshapes the industry.

Eli Dvorkin, editorial and policy director at the Center for an Urban Future, said CUNY’s decade of enrollment growth and a rapidly changing tech economy have left the university system confronting another challenge: whether it has enough instructional capacity—and the right expertise—to prepare computer science students for the changing workforce. Faculty growth in the department failed to keep pace with the decade-long enrollment boom, he said, creating potential bottlenecks for students trying to build careers in technology.

“Just a few years ago, a computer science degree alone could take a student pretty far,” Dvorkin said. “But in today’s much tougher entry-level job market, students need more applied skills, exposure to AI in context, real-world projects, industry connections, and faculty who have the insights to help them connect to careers and enough time to mentor them.”

“That all raises the stakes enormously for getting the faculty piece right when it comes to computer science education,” he added.

Demand outpaces capacity: The report draws on more than 75 interviews and an analysis of CUNY’s data on enrollment, faculty hiring, course offerings, budgets and student outcomes.

It shows that faculty growth has fallen far behind student demand. Between 2014 and 2024, the number of full-time computer science faculty increased by 21 percent at the system’s four-year universities and declined by 22 percent at community colleges. At several campuses, student-to-faculty ratios more than doubled—including at Queens College, where the ratio rose from 16 to one to 40 to one.

Ping Ji, chair of the computer science department at Hunter College, said that despite a recent decline in computer science enrollment, the institution continues to face a high student-to-faculty ratio. Today, she said, it is closer to 50 to one. By comparison, CUNY’s target student-to-faculty ratio across STEM fields is 100 students for every seven faculty members, or roughly 14 to one.

“What this report has been saying is very much reflecting the facts on what’s going on in CUNY,” Ji said. “I’m deeply impressed by the students’ capabilities, and most importantly, their motivation for learning. They are thirsty for knowledge, but where do we put them?”

When recent graduate Oluebube Onwuamaegbu first enrolled at Hunter, she took an introductory Python course with nearly 800 students.

“Most computer science majors starting off start in that class,” Onwuamaegbu said. “There were a lot of us. I wasn’t impressed.”

“There’s not really much asking questions to your professor because a billion other people have their hands raised,” she added. “And then on top of that, I’m really shy, so I’m not trying to ask a question in case it comes off dumb.”

Ji said she has observed the course herself, watching the professor teach hundreds of students at once through a headset.

“It’s not easy, and obviously, I don’t think it’s really right,” Ji said. “It’s disheartening to see students with their sparkling eyes eager to get the right education.”

Onwuamaegbu graduated from Hunter in 2025 and now works as a software engineer for Amazon. But reflecting on her time at the college, she said many of her courses emphasized C++, while prospective employers often sought experience with other programming languages. She believes that mismatch made it more difficult to land an internship while she was a student.

“In any of the interviews I’ve done, I have never had someone prefer C++,” Onwuamaegbu said. “Luckily, I did end up getting something, but a lot of places didn’t want to interview you on knowing C++ alone.”

Onwuamaegbu’s experience is reflected in the report’s argument that CUNY not only needs more faculty; it also needs professors with more applied expertise and industry experience to match the evolving skills demanded by technology employers. Across four colleges analyzed by the center, just 19 of 79 full-time computer science faculty had prior industry experience.

The report also found that students perceived a persistent gap between classroom instruction and the applied skills employers increasingly expect. In fall 2025, CUNY offered eight artificial intelligence or machine learning courses, with just 255 seats systemwide.

Dvorkin said those gaps are especially consequential at CUNY, where more than half of students work while attending college and just 12 percent participate in a paid internship. For many students, he said, faculty remain their most consistent source of mentorship, career guidance and exposure to workplace-relevant skills.

“For thousands of low-income New Yorkers, CUNY computer science has become one of the clearest pathways into a well-paying career,” Dvorkin said. “So many of the students enrolling in CUNY’s computer science programs are first-time college students, first in their families to go to college, coming from low-income backgrounds without having had extensive experience or even, in some cases, introductory experience in computing career pathways in high school.”

“Coming to CUNY is a leap of faith,” he added. “So we should be doing everything possible to make sure that that pathway still works as the tech economy changes.”

Competing for faculty: The Center for an Urban Future identified several barriers to expanding CUNY’s faculty ranks, including comparatively low salaries, limited research and start-up support, and lengthy hiring processes. Between 2015 and 2025, CUNY advertised more computer science faculty openings than any comparable New York City institution but offered the lowest median advertised annual salary, approximately $79,000.

The report also points to unevenly distributed resources for new faculty. One recently hired computer science professor received $20,000 to establish a research lab, while other researchers documented job postings delayed beyond the peak faculty hiring season, offers held up by lengthy approval processes and difficulties accessing research funding after it had been awarded.

“CUNY is trying to recruit computer science professors with one hand tied behind its back,” Dvorkin said. “Salaries are way lower in many cases than the average for other public universities. Research support is much lighter. The hiring process is slower, and so in a really competitive field, that combination is brutal.”

“We’ve documented multiple instances where even after [administrators were authorized] to make an offer, really promising faculty ultimately chose to walk away and take jobs elsewhere because it was taking months and months and months to actually get that offer,” Dvorkin said. “In a field that moves as fast as computer science, CUNY’s got to move fast enough to keep pace.”

Ji said the resource constraints are particularly detrimental to CUNY students, who she believes often depend more heavily on their institutions for academic and career support than students at wealthier universities.

“If you compare CUNY students with Columbia students … Columbia kids don’t need us, CUNY students do,” Ji said.

“CUNY and Hunter have been trying to do whatever they can do,” Ji said. “The administrators do give attention, they do have the intention of supporting us, but for whatever reason the resources are just lacking.”

Responding to change: The report highlights promising steps CUNY has already taken to strengthen its computing capacity and better connect classroom learning with careers. These include appointing an inaugural university dean for technology and computer and information sciences, expanding the Practitioners-in-Residence Corps, investing in faculty development, launching CUNY Beyond and securing a $75 million gift from the Simons Foundation to advance research computing and artificial intelligence and hire up to 25 new faculty members.

Aankit Patel, university dean for technology and computer and information science, pointed to additional investments the system has made, including increased staffing through CUNY Tech Futures and the launch of more than 100 AI initiatives, such as the CUNY AI Lab, a faculty-led effort to develop AI tools for teaching and research.

“We are working closely with our city partners … to respond to the moment and hopefully create a curriculum that’s meaningful to students as they try to figure out how to navigate the changing job market,” Patel said.

Recent graduate Mohamed Elmonoufy is among the students who have used CUNY programs to build a pathway into the technology industry. Elmonoufy graduated from the New York City College of Technology with a degree in computer systems and a concentration in software development. While attending college and working full-time as a taxi driver, he landed an internship that ultimately helped him secure his current role as a machine learning and AI trainee at Openigloo.

“CUNY was very suited to my life schedule because I had been working full-time all my journey in college,” Elmonoufy said. “Sometimes I took online classes, sometimes I took evening classes, so it was flexible for me.”

The path forward: The report offers several recommendations, including expanding faculty capacity in high-demand fields, starting with computer science; increasing city funding for faculty; and updating state funding formulas to reflect the higher cost of educating computer science students. It also calls for accelerating CUNY’s faculty hiring process, creating a dedicated computer science faculty investment fund and deepening collaboration between faculty and industry.

Dvorkin said CUNY’s recent investments provide a strong foundation but are not yet sufficient to meet the scale of student demand or the pace of change in the tech economy.

“CUNY already has pieces of the solution, but the opportunity now is to take promising models that are operating at modest scale and identify solutions to these specific barriers that make hiring or retention so challenging,” Dvorkin said.

For Ji, the work of CUNY’s computer science faculty calls to mind a Chinese proverb: 吃的是草，挤出来的是奶, which translates roughly to “What the cow eats is grass; what it produces is milk.” Ji said the proverb captures how faculty have worked with limited resources while producing something far more valuable for their students.

“I totally understand CUNY’s constraints, because this is a public school. There are so many people, so many disciplines,” Ji said. “But computer science absolutely needs the support and is worth the support.”

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