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Hostos Community College
Save Hostos
In the fall of 1975, New York City had run out of money and was on the verge of defaulting on its debts. Many measures were taken to control spending, including increasing subway fares and cutting the budget of the City University of New York (CUNY). One proposal to reduce spending at CUNY was to merge several smaller campuses with larger ones: John Jay with Baruch and Hostos with Bronx Community College. Hostos was the newest campus in the system, founded only seven years earlier to meet the workforce and educational needs of the economically struggling, largely Puerto Rican population of the South Bronx. In this short time Hostos had become, and remains to this day, a symbol of the vitality and potential of the community. In response to the proposed merger, the South Bronx and campus community launched an ultimately successful campaign to save Hostos as an independent campus within the City University system. The newsletters, images, reports, and articles from the press describe and document the Save Hostos movement. They attest to the determination and dedication of various groups from campus administration to students and community organizations—as they successfully worked in the winter of 1975 through the spring of 1976 to keep Hostos alive. The Gerald J. Meyer Collection at Hostos contains the Save Hostos material and is available to researchers.