By Annie Waldman, Propublica
It’s yet another obstacle for borrowers from the country’s largest state-based college loan program
Some restaurants have secret menus, special items that you can only get if you know to ask. New Jersey’s student loan program has secret options, too — borrowers may be able to get help from the agency, but only if they know to ask.…
Read MoreBy Patricia Alex, Staff Writer, The Record
A coalition at Rutgers is pushing for a rollback of 2.5 percent when the governing board sets tuition and fees next month for the 2016-17 school year.
It’s a quixotic quest to be sure, as even calls for a freeze were unsuccessful in recent years, when increases ranged between 2 and 3 percent.…
Read Moreby Jon Whiten
Underfunding of Public Colleges & Universities Continues & Would Be Made Worse by Proposed Tax Cuts for the Wealthy
New Jersey students and families continue to have a hard time affording the high cost of a college education, thanks to sharply declining state support for public colleges and universities. As the Garden State has cut higher education funding, the price of attending public colleges continues to rise as family incomes decline, shifting the cost of paying for college onto working-class and middle-class students and families, resulting in higher and higher levels of student debt.…
Read MoreBy Patricia Alex, Staff Writer, The Record
Rowan University turned to private donors recently to buy its president a $1 million home, which it claimed was needed, perhaps ironically, to entertain donors to the state school. Alumni giving at Rutgers rose from $66.7 million in 2006 to $187.9 million in 2015. And William Paterson University tripled the donations to a scholarship fund that this year awarded more than $1 million to students.…
Read MoreBy Nikhilesh De
The Rutgers Board of Governors hosted an open hearing on tuition rates Thursday night in the College Avenue Student Center multipurpose room, where members of the University community could discuss what a tuition increase or rollback would mean to them.
One student opened by saying she was $60,000 in debt. Another’s father discussed how he had to take out a loan to help his daughter pay for college, despite being a retiree.…
Read MoreBy Jonathan Xiong
A coalition of students groups and labor unions are working to defend public education.
Rutgers One, an organization whose major members include the American Association of University Professors-American Federation of Teachers, United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS), Black Lives Matter and the Union of Rutgers Administration, are actively trying to ensure all instructors are paid fairly without burdening students unduly.…
Read MoreBy Daniel Falkenheim, Web Editor
The Montclair State University Board of Trustees held their annual tuition hearing on Friday, but no more than five students appeared at the hearing. Only three students signed up to speak at the hearing in advance, which is a far cry from when dozens of members of the Montclair State Students for a Democratic Society showed up to protest tuition hikes at hearings in 2012.…
Read MoreHBO, with no ties that bind it to the NCAA, is able to pursue certain truths. Thus, Tuesday’s 10 p.m. Real Sports should be of great interest and concern to taxpayers, especially New Jersey’s.
As seen and heard in a piece anchored by Jon Frankel, D-I football and basketball colleges have sold their souls — their students, academic standards and financial stability — for nothing more beneficial to society than trying to win ballgames.…
Read MoreBy Adam Clark | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
TRENTON — With the cost of college rising and graduates swimming in student debt, New Jersey lawmakers are calling for a cap on in-state tuition hikes at the state’s public college and universities.
The Assembly Higher Education Committee on Monday approved a bill (A552) that would place an annual 4 percent cap on in-state tuition and fee increases at public colleges.…
Read MoreBy Sen Sandra Cunningham and Sen. Stephen Sweeney
[…]The New Jersey Honors Scholars program, an Investing in You initiative that was discussed at last Wednesday’s College Affordability Commission meeting, would build upon the successful NJ STARS program that currently provides up to two years of free community college tuition to those graduating in the top 15 percent of their high school class.…
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CAMDEN — A new grant program at Rutgers University’s Camden campus will make the college tuition-free for New Jersey students whose families make less than $60,000 a year.
“Bridging the Gap” — billed as the first program of its kind among New Jersey colleges — will be open exclusively to state residents graduating from high school in 2016 and will cover half or all of tuition after students apply for federal and state grants.
By Adam Clark | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
NEW BRUNSWICK — Rutgers University officials said they wanted State Senate President Steve Sweeney to leave campus Thursday afternoon with a sense that the university is “on the move.”
After touring the first building the university constructed with the help of the state’s $750 million higher education bond issue, Sweeney had that feeling and more, he said.…
Read MoreBy Kelly Heyboer, NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
NEW BRUNSWICK — Rutgers University will offer scholarships to freshmen in several health majors to cover a 60 percent tuition hike students said took them by surprise, campus officials said.
Tuition for several majors in Rutgers’ School of Health Related Professions — including sonography, dental hygiene and nuclear medicine – were scheduled to jump from $345 to $552 per credit this fall.…
Read MoreBy Hannan Adely, Staff Writer, The Record
NEW BRUNSWICK – Rutgers University voted Thursday to raise tuition 2.3 percent, citing salary costs, a drop in state aid, and school investments as reasons.
University officials said the increase was “relatively moderate” and noted that they also raised financial aid grants by 3.2 percent to help students in need.…
Read MoreBy Andrea Fuller and Douglas Belkin
Most colleges can’t keep their doors open without an accreditor’s seal of approval, which is needed to get students access to federal loans and grants. But accreditors hardly ever kick out the worst-performing colleges and lack uniform standards for assessing graduation rates and loan defaults.
Those problems are blamed by critics for deepening the student-debt crisis as college costs soared during the past decade.…
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