Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) Commissioner Yume Kitasei announced on July 9 that civil service exams are now free for New York City high school students and first-time test takers. Given that 80 percent of City Jobs require passing one of these exams, dropping the fee is a real needle mover in who gets a fair opportunity at these jobs, which is far more than just a symbolic move.
The scale is bigger than it may even sound. DCAS runs about 175 exams a year for more than 110,000 candidates, covering roles as far apart as scientist, forester, bridge operator, caseworker, and blacksmith. Mamdani framed the move as being about who gets to build the city going forward, “The people best equipped to build a city that works for everyone are the students in the classroom, the people who walk our streets and the New Yorkers who call our city home.”
Kitasei tied it to something practical, saying the goal is to remove barriers that keep qualified candidates from getting in the door in the first place.
The waiver itself runs through Local Law 57 of 2025, and it builds on fee waivers that already existed for veterans, unemployed New Yorkers, and people receiving public assistance. To actually use it, applicants go through the City’s Online Application System, OASys 2.0. First-time test takers get verified automatically. High school students qualify by submitting proof they’re currently enrolled. Either way, the fee that used to sit between someone and a City job is now gone.
There’s a second piece to this announcement that may have gone overlooked: language access. Starting now, the Notices of Examination that lay out requirements for each exam can be translated into more than 190 languages. While the exams themselves are still given in English, the information regarding what’s required to sit for one is no longer locked behind a language barrier.
The City also dropped its full exam calendar for the next fiscal year alongside the announcement with 149 exams in total and 72 percent of them being open to any qualified New Yorker and the other 28 percent reserved for promotional exams for those already working for the City. Application windows are staggered out across the year, with some already started and continuing into 2027, for titles that range from Police Officer and Correction Officer to Public Health Nurse and Construction Project Manager Intern. Any specific title can be accessed directly by checking out the full schedule since DCAS groups exams by application cycle rather than having a specific date for each job.
City Council members who backed the underlying law framed it in similar terms. Council member De La Rosa, who sponsored the bill, said it “removes civil service exam fees for first-time test takers and New York City high school students” while also addressing “longstanding gender and sociodemographic inequities in access to government careers.”
Schools Chancellor Kamar H. Samuels added that the goal is connecting classroom learning directly to careers, calling it “a seamless bridge from school to public service.”
None of this guarantees a job. What it removes is the fee that used to sit in front of the exam itself, for a group of people who are arguably the most likely to be priced out of it in the first place.
