CUNY Beyond, an initiative that directly connects students with career opportunities, has been expanded to two Queens college campuses as the public university system rolls out the second phase of the initiative ahead of the fall semester.
The $6.8 million expansion of the initiative, which was launched last fall at LaGuardia Community College (LAGCC) in Long Island City and three other campuses across the city, will be fully integrated at Queensborough Community College in Bayside and York College in Jamaica.
The initiative will provide students with a roadmap to careers from the first day they enter college, as well as offer networking opportunities with dedicated staff that work directly in industries associated with students’ majors.
In addition to the two Queens-based campuses, the program will also be rolled out to Baruch College, City College of New York (CCNY) and Kingsborough Community College.
In total, over 125,000 students across the nine integrated campuses will benefit from CUNY Beyond.
The second phase of the initiative is funded through the FY27 state budget and is slated to reach full integration at all 19 undergraduate CUNY institutions by 2030.
“Career-connected learning reflects a new normal in higher education. Students want direction toward a career and it’s our job to get them there,” said CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez. “And thanks to Governor Hochul’s leadership, we will ensure CUNY students graduate into rewarding careers. This expansion is crucial, and I look forward to working with the governor to extend this program to even more students in the years ahead.”
According to Lauren Anderson, vice chancellor for Career Engagement & Industry Partnerships at CUNY, the results of the first phase of the initiative have been promising, demonstrating a higher number of applications to internship programs. Applications shot up 20% at Hunter College, 32% at LAGCC, 76% at Lehman College and 123% at Borough of Manhattan Community College, all of which rolled out the program last year.
CUNY Beyond, she explained, helps assess where students are when they start college and connect them with the resources, support and framework to enter the workforce after graduation.
“The whole point of this initiative is to ensure that we are reaching students where they are so that they don’t have to opt-in to additional services outside of their pathway,” Anderson said. “We’re making sure the advisors they already meet with are equipped with the tools to have conversations with them about where they want to go and what they need to get there.”
CUNY Beyond consists of five pillars — Career Exposure and Exploration, Integrated Academic and Career Advising, Career-Connected Learning, Paid Work-Based Learning and Employer Engagement. Each college must appoint a leader of each pillar, who is tasked with collecting and managing resources such as industry connections that can help students secure interviews, internships and job opportunities.
These appointed leaders, who are either existing college staff or newly hired staff members, report to either the president or provost at each campus, which Anderson said is intended to keep the college accountable and ensure every part of the students’ journey is truly tailored to their career goals.
Through CUNY Beyond, students are provided a “career-infused” degree map that not only helps students plan courses needed each semester, but also reach career-oriented benchmarks. The plan includes tasks as simple as creating a LinkedIn profile to ventures as complex as landing a first internship.
CUNY has collaborated with 150 employers including Morgan Stanley, Google and Pfizer to establish career maps, which offer semester-by-semester professional milestones alongside academic goals. There are 320 career maps spanning 239 academic programs, although in Fall 2026, all new undergraduate programs will be required to include a career-infused degree map.
Queensborough Community College campus in Bayside.Photo courtesy Queensborough Community College
Currently, the five added colleges are updating student orientations to be more career-aligned, as well as working to educate students about internship opportunities and the application process.
Phyllis Curtis-Tweed, provost and vice president of academic affairs at QCC, said the college is striving to achieve goals outlined by CUNY Beyond’s five pillars and has already appointed leaders to manage all aspects of the initiative.
Since the initiative is data-driven, she continued, QCC also appointed a data manager to help evaluate how CUNY Beyond is impacting the college.
While QCC already had its own career services, Curtis-Tweed explained that CUNY Beyond will better align leadership, faculty, advisors, career services, technology and student support around common goals.
“This initiative really brings everything together with a very intentional approach to improving career readiness and success of students,” she said. “It creates this streamlined approach and makes sure students are aware of opportunities… The college really takes more responsibility and accountability to help students.”
Tim Paglione, interim associate provost at York, said the college also had an existing career preparedness campaign inspired by CUNY Beyond. Now that the college has been included in the second phase of the initiative, he said York officially has the support it needs to fully implement the initiative.
Paglione explained that there are many fields in high demand right now that students might not know how to pursue, such as geology. Now, through CUNY Beyond, he said faculty can better advise students and increase exposure to lesser-known programs, as well as help them understand how the skills they acquire in the program translate to job opportunities.
“CUNY Beyond is all about putting effort into letting students explore these majors so they can step out into a career that’s really in demand,” he said.
The best part of the initiative, he continued, is that it’s fully funded through the state to ensure resources and personnel are available for full implementation at the college. Just like QCC, York has already named leads for each of the five pillars — Paglione serving as one of them — and is currently searching for a general lead to oversee the entire initiative.
In addition, Paglione said the college is searching for industry advisors not only to teach courses, but also to directly connect students with employers in their respective fields.
York College campus in Jamaica.Photo courtesy York College
In an age where jobs are so difficult to come by for new grads, Paglione said it was important an initiative like CUNY Beyond be available to students.
“The job market is awful for new grads — it’s a really challenging time,” he explained. “Students always stress about looking for jobs at graduation time.”
He cited issues such as AI filters, jobs with hundreds of applicants and student debt as major sources of anxiety for students.
But, Paglione continued, CUNY Beyond has had a “monstrous” return on investment that he said speaks to the importance of higher education investments. He even thinks it could help reinvigorate students’ interest in STEM majors, which has been on the decline despite how lucrative they are.
“Clarity and reducing the unknown is always great for students,” he said. “We need to take this time for them to realize what they can do with their education.”
Anderson also said an initiative like CUNY Beyond is important in the current job market — especially as news headlines continue to show that opportunities for entry-level positions are becoming more challenging to find.
Around half of the students that attend CUNY institutions, she continued, come from households that earn less than $30,000 per year and often don’t have exposure to professional networks in high-wage, high-growth industries.
“What this initiative does is ensure that while students are here with us at CUNY, we are doing everything possible to connect them to where they want to go before they leave our doors,” Anderson said. “We want to make sure that we at CUNY are acting as the bridge to those opportunities and hoping they are able to navigate a very uncertain world.”
Curtis-Tweed echoed Anderson’s sentiment and emphasized how important CUNY Beyond is for first generation and immigrant students. She said she hopes the initiative brings greater awareness of the steps needed to secure a job and career both while in college and after graduation.
“All students need support whether they’re nervous about trying something new or have a lot of confidence,” she stressed. “I believe this initiative really builds on CUNY’s mission to promote social mobility for students no matter where they enter, regardless of background.”
“We’re very much looking forward to it,” Paglione added. “There’s just a lot that we’re hoping CUNY Beyond brings to the campus to invigorate retention, enrollment and engagement with our academic programs.”