Written by JOHN P. SHERIDAN Jr. For the Courier-Post
South Jersey is home to 30 percent of the state’s total population, yet it has only 12.5 percent of the state’s total undergraduate seats. Each year approximately 35,000 high school graduates leave New Jersey, many of them from our region, to attend college elsewhere.
Let’s keep our talented high school graduates right here. The creation of a combined, single university can accomplish that goal.
In addition to the difference in undergraduate seats and the outbound migration of students seeking degrees elsewhere, other inequities exist — financial inequities between the “north” and “south.”
Ninety percent of state support for higher education goes to institutions in North Jersey. According to Rutgers-Camden leadership, an equitable distribution of Rutgers’ state operating funds to the Camden campus should have provided an additional $40 million to $50 million annually to support new programs and growth here. That never happened.
A recent billion-and-a-half-dollar capital funding request by Rutgers included only 9 percent for Camden. University leaders have admitted Rutgers-Camden student tuition exceeds the level of support the Rutgers-Camden campus receives from New Brunswick. Clearly, this is not a fair or reasonable way to apportion funds.
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