After leading and transforming the City university of New York for 14 years, Matthew Goldstein, chancellor of the City University of New York, is stepping down. He helped the CUNY school system in its’ progression in establishing a dozen 4-year colleges, 6 community colleges, and over half a million students in degree programs or continuing education. In an interview with WNYC, Goldstein looks back at the reforms he implemented and the changes he has made to this educational system.

The Chancellor, who attended CUNY City College says,  “It’s where you get the degree, not where you enter the institution.” Goldstein says CUNY is a place where you get a valued degree at a low cost. He said he has been working since 1999 to establish a reform that will reduce the variance of students in the educational system. In 2012, CUNY had the highest enrollment in history.

He says 8% of the students that enter one of the seven community colleges need some form of remediation, which they offer a those community colleges that will cater to their needs. The 4-year colleges focus on bringing in students with higher SAT scores and have more of a readiness to learn at a higher level. “We spend a lot of money to remediate these students to get them ready for college level work,” Goldstein says, “One of the things that you learn as an educator is that its very difficult to target a curriculum when there is great variance in the academic preparedness of the students. Everybody loses. “

He thanks Andrew Cuomo for allowing CUNY and SUNY to work together in determining a more predictable tuition policy and operating budget stabile that they have been able to capitalize upon. Before Goldstein came to office in 1999, the City University was raising under 50 million and now they are raising almost a quarter of a billion in public fundraising  Goldstein closes by saying that there is going to be number of challenges that the next successor is going to face which include, getting money from private companies, advancing in technology and being vigilant to educate the full spectrum of students.