CUNY Earns Forbes Best
Employers for Women Honor

CUNY Named One of the Best Employers for Women by Forbes

University Ranked No. 40 as Best Employer for Women in Education and No. 226 Among America’s 700 Best Employers for Women

Recognition Comes After Newsweek Places CUNY Among the Best Colleges for Women

The City University of New York has been recognized as one of Forbes’ Best Employers for Women, ranking No. 40 among employers in the education industry and No. 226 overall on the magazine's 2026 list. The honor underscores CUNY’s role as a national leader in creating opportunities for women to succeed throughout their careers in higher education and follows a similar recognition from Newsweek, which named CUNY among its Best Colleges for Women earlier this year.

“CUNY has long been committed to creating a workplace where women can thrive as leaders, educators, researchers and professionals,” said CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez. “We are grateful for this recognition, which reflects the dedication of our faculty and staff and the University’s ongoing efforts to foster an inclusive, supportive workplace where employees can build meaningful careers.”

The annual ranking is based on an independent survey of more than 146,000 women employed at organizations with at least 1,000 employees in the United States. Participants evaluated their current and former employers, while the rankings also factored in the representation of women among executive leadership and boards of directors.

The earlier Newsweek list lauded CUNY’s efforts to promote women into leadership roles across the institution, reflecting the University’s broader commitment to creating pathways for women to excel in academia and beyond. These recognitions highlight the University’s success in expanding educational opportunity, advancing student success and preparing women for careers in high-demand fields.

CUNY’s commitment to advancing women is reflected across the University’s leadership. Since Chancellor Matos Rodríguez took office in 2019, he has named women to fill more than half of the positions on his leadership team, and women now make up a majority of CUNY’s college presidents. They lead a university community in which 55% of the students identify as women. 

That commitment to cultivating diverse leadership was demonstrated in February, when the University appointed Alicia M. Alvero as executive vice chancellor and University provost. Alvero is the first Latina to serve as CUNY’s chief academic officer and one of the University’s highest-ranking leaders. 

The Eos Foundation and the American Association of University Women named the CUNY Graduate Center as the second-most gender diverse higher education institution in the country for its representation of women in positions of senior leadership. The 2022 report listed the Graduate Center as one of only 11 R1 universities to have achieved gender parity, defined as equal or more women represented in senior leadership when compared to men.  

The University also hosts an annual Women’s Conference Week, a five-day series of programming throughout Women’s History Month that provides career development and mentorship opportunities for women among CUNY’s faculty, staff and students. The event, which has been held each year since 2005, has been continually expanded to provide ample opportunities for women to learn and grow across the CUNY network.

The City University of New York is the nation’s largest urban public university, a transformative engine of social mobility that is a critical component of the lifeblood of New York City. Founded in 1847 as the nation’s first free public institution of higher education, CUNY today has seven community colleges, 11 senior colleges and eight honors, graduate and professional institutions spread across New York City’s five boroughs, serving 247,000 undergraduate and graduate students and awarding 50,000 degrees each year. CUNY’s mix of quality and affordability propels almost six times as many low-income students into the middle class and beyond as all the Ivy League colleges combined. More than 80 percent of the University’s graduates stay in New York, contributing to all aspects of the city’s economic, civic and cultural life and diversifying the city’s workforce in every sector. CUNY’s graduates and faculty have received many prestigious honors, including 13 Nobel Prizes and 26 MacArthur “genius” grants. The University’s historic mission continues to this day: provide a first-rate public education to all students, regardless of means or background. To learn more about CUNY, visit https://www.cuny.edu.

SOURCE: City University of New York