Audit Report on the Operating Practices of the City University of New York College Discovery Program

AUDIT REPORT IN BRIEF

We performed an audit of the operating practices of the College Discovery Program (CDP) of the City University of New York (CUNY) to determine whether the six CUNY community colleges administered the CDP on their campuses in accordance with university guidelines. The program serves academically and economically disadvantaged students.

The audit found that, in general, the individual colleges are administering the CDP program in accordance with CUNY guidelines. Specifically:

• The programs provide support services, such as orientation courses, counseling, and tutoring services to help students achieve a quality college education.
• All program directors submitted CDP Academic Plans, Financial Plans, and Final Reports to the CUNY chancellor.
• Students we interviewed expressed positive opinions about the program.
• Sampled students met the academic and financial requirements for enrollment in the program.

However, there is no comprehensive process to measure and report on the effectiveness—that is, student academic progress—of the six college CDPs. In addition, students do not fully use CDP counseling and tutoring services at the two sampled colleges, and counselors at these colleges did not monitor student progress adequately.

To address these issues, the report makes 11 recommendations that include the following:

• CUNY should evaluate the CDPs at the individual colleges using uniform performance indicators, such as student retention rates and the academic progress of students who use program services, and should compare them to those of students (both CDP and non-CDP) who do not use program services.
• CDP counselors should contact students who do not come in for the required number of counseling sessions to determine why they do not come in and encourage them to do so.
• CDP officials at the CUNY level should consider standardizing individual college CDP counseling service requirements.
• CDP tutors should contact students who do not come in for tutoring services to determine why they do not come in and encourage them to do so.
• CDP officials should ensure that colleges track CDP student progress.
• CDP officials should consider standardizing the ways individual colleges track student progress.

In their responses to our audit, CUNY officials and CDP officials from Hostos Community College and LaGuardia Community College did not acknowledge the problems discussed in the audit report. Their responses to our recommendations stated that the CDPs in general practice what the recommendations call for. The comments did not address the exceptions found during the audit