“I was telling people about what I felt when I saw that smoke coming out of that building, and the only question in my mind was, How can we save City College? And the only answer was, Hell, let everybody in. –Deputy Chancellor Seymour Hyman, 1969
Brooklyn College campus during the 1960s
According to Peter Carino: “The approximate ten years of the late 1960s and middle 1970s when open admissions programs were initiated and developed were one of the most volatile periods of social unrest in American history.” Brooklyn College faced two major crises during these two decades: the beginning of open admissions as well as the imposition of tuition.
During this time at Brooklyn College, a policy called “Open Admissions” was adopted in order to provide better opportunities for education of immigrants and other underprivileged people. This began initially with a four-tiered integration plan, but later devolved into a plan that was much less structured. Much of this development came from pressure from minority groups, who sought to create CUNY schools as a place of equal representation for all races. Riots in City College occurred on the South Campus, and led to the abandonment of the four-tiered system. Finally, on November 12, 1969, CUNY colleges adopted a policy, which allowed students with academic averages of 80 or above to be eligible to attend Brooklyn College.
This step represented a complete departure from the admissions policies Brooklyn College used previously. While providing many more students with an education came at a cost, Brooklyn College was forced to impose tuition in 1976. This cut the enrollment at Brooklyn College from 35,400 to 17,567. Many attributed this to two reasons, one, the tuition drove away students who were too poor, or had other options. Two, some say the open admissions policy made CUNY so undesirable to attend, people just stopped applying. As a result, CUNY continued to lose high-performing students, and during the close of the 1970s, CUNY began to lower its admission standards even more.
