The NYPD has reduced the number of college credits required to join the force, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced Wednesday.
Incoming recruits only need 24 college credits, a steep drop from the 60 previously required.
At the same time, the department plans to prioritize fitness at the academy and has reinstated a long-standing requirement of completing a 1.5-mile run in less than 14 minutes and 21 seconds.
Tisch said at a breakfast sponsored by the Association for a Better New York that the changes will hopefully stem the NYPD’s current hiring crisis and ensure that incoming officers are better prepared to meet the unique demands of law enforcement.
“Keeping the greatest city in the world safe requires recruiting and retaining the best people for the job,” Tisch said Wednesday.
“Our officers work tirelessly to keep crime down and protect our communities but it’s no secret that the NYPD is facing a hiring crisis. These changes will bring the department more in line with peer agencies across the country, strengthen our officer training and ensure that the NYPD remains the best and most rewarding way for someone to serve their community.”
Mayor Adams had considered reducing the number of college credits for incoming applicants back in 2022 after meeting with the mayor of Chicago.
The NYPD is one of the few law enforcement agencies requiring 60 college credits to be hired. One must already have 45 college credits to apply to the NYPD with the understanding you will have the other credits by the time you begin the academy.
In 2023, 29% of NYPD applications — or 2,275 potential officers — were disqualified from joining simply because of this requirement, the department said.
Police forces in Nassau County, Suffolk County, Westchester, Yonkers, and Mount Vernon don’t have a college credit requirement. Neither do police forces in Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, and Boston, officials said.
Lowering the credit requirement will automatically open the doors to more than 5,000 potential candidates already on 29 other active civil service lists who were previously ineligible because they didn’t have 60 college credits, officials said.
A review of academy training by the National College Credit Recommendation Service determined that completion of the six-month NYPD Police Academy training program was the equivalent of 45 college credits, up from the previous 36 credits.
With the 24 college credits they start with, recruits will graduate from the academy with a minimum of 69 college credits, officials said.
The training run requirement, which was needed to graduate, was relaxed in 2023 when then NYPD Chief of Training Juanita Holmes lobbied to eliminate it, feeling it was unnecessary and an obstacle for female recruits.
When former NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell shot down Holmes’ plans to get rid of the run, Holmes did an end-run around Sewell and went to Adams, who at the time agreed with the plan.
The NYPD is constantly retooling their application requirements as they try to lure qualified candidates. In 2001, for example, then-Commissioner Bernard Kerik lowered the application age from 22 to 21, feeling more people would apply. He also ordered the 60 college credits waived for applicants who had military service.