More than anything, though, it has been the compounding nature of the fiscal pressures, year after year, with this year being the worst, that has eaten away at the experience of CUNY’s students and faculty, from canceled electives to instructors improvising in the face of shortages.

Some even fret that the university may lose the momentum it has gained in the last two decades, after it ended an open-admissions policy for its four-year colleges, and successfully raised academic standards and launched new programs.

‘Like Two Different Worlds’

Joseph Awadjie, an immigrant from Ghana, earned a bachelor’s degree at Brooklyn College in 2007. After working for a while at a physical therapy practice, he returned to the college in 2013 to pursue a master’s degree in kinesiology. He said he was struck by a rapidly deteriorating campus — some call it “Brokelyn College” — where students were often unable to get into the courses they needed to meet requirements. One of his courses, cardiac rehabilitation, lacked essential materials such as inhalers and carbon dioxide masks.

“It’s like two different worlds,” he said.

Mr. Awadjie has become even more aware of the systemwide problems from his perch as chairman of the CUNY University Student Senate. He fielded no more than five complaints a month when his term began in 2014, but this year, he said, he has gotten more than 60 a month, many about overcrowded classes.

At City College, Anais McAllister, 22, a senior from Yonkers, said she had planned to major in English with a concentration in education, which would have allowed her to become a teacher after graduation. When some of her required education classes were canceled, she realized she would need another year — and another $6,000, at least — to graduate with the education credential.

With her scholarship expiring at the end of this academic year, and a younger brother entering trade school in the fall to obtain his plumber certification, she dropped the education concentration.