College Grads Changing Careers to the NYPD

The ranks of New York City’s finest are being joined by increasing numbers of refugees from other New York career sectors, notably the financial services area. Applications to the Police Academy rose 54 percent in 2008 over 2007, when there were 17,212 applicants. The wider pool of candidates has enabled the department to become more diverse by the year; the percentage of black, Hispanic and Asian officers has steadily risen since 2000, as has the percentage of female officers.

According to the New York Times such was not always the case. The Department has recruited for years trying to attract quality police officers and diversify its force. Now that they are drawing record numbers of applicants, the city budget has forced them to limit hiring severely. Currently the force has 34,301 members – about 6,000 fewer than in 2001.

Currently the Department requires applicants to hold a bachelor’s degree or have assembled 60 college credits, with no particular requirement for a course of study. With the influx of educated, out of work applicants for the Police Department the educational demographic for their work force is changing.

In the Police Academy class that graduated in December 2008, 281 of the 1,126 graduates had four-year degrees (about 25 percent). In the class that graduated in July, 113 of 256 officers had four-year degrees (about 44 percent). In the current class studying in the academy, 144 of the 261 potential officers have four-year degrees (about 55 percent).

Over half of their applicants this year hold bachelor degrees. The missing statistic is the percentage of officers currently in the ranks who are engaged in a distance learning program in order to further their management opportunities in the Department, but there is no question about the rising level of education in the ranks at the NYPD.

One of last years enrollees, now working on the beat is Officer Ricardo Montilla, who had been a financial manager for Washington Mutual in Brooklyn. The pay raises had stopped and he was concerned about the security of his job. He gave up a larger salary for the security – and the benefits – associated with an NYPD job.

Henry Chung left a position as financial analyst at Merrill Lynch a year ago and went to the Police Academy. He held a position as vice president there, but finds more security in police work, as well as more variety. “It’s a little different than looking at a computer monitor trying to figure out why there’s a million bucks missing in the firm’s accounts.”

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