By Patricia Alex. Staff Writer. The Record.

Even as Governor Christie continued to push lawmakers to meet his June 30 deadline for a sweeping higher education restructuring, others rallied in Trenton on Thursday to urge that they slow the process down, warning that the changes could be disruptive, chaotic and costly.

Sen. Ron Rice, D-Newark made an impassioned plea for his colleagues on the Senate Higher Education Committee to hold the bill that would set those changes in motion since there had not been sufficient discussion or reliable cost estimates for the plan.

“You’re being duped as a committee and we’re being duped as legislators,” Rice said. “To move a bill of this magnitude out of this committee to appropriations – it’s going to cost millions or billions – it doesn’t make any sense.”

But one of the sponsor’s of the bill said a tight timetable is needed to move the bill to overcome “entrenched bureaucracies” that are resisting the plan.

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