Fears persist that cost of Rutgers merger plan will be borne by tuition payers

By Patricia Alex, Staff Writer, The Record.

The projected cost for the state’s massive higher education reorganization has grown to more than $100 million, according to officials from the public universities involved — a burden that many fear will be shifted, despite assurances from school leaders, onto those who pay tuition.

No funding for the merger plan has been included in the state budget, leaving it to the schools — Rutgers University, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and Rowan University — to absorb the one-time expenses.

“If we’re not paying for this, who is?” asked John Connelly, a senior at Rutgers who is soon to graduate with $20,000 in student loan debt. “Tuition is very much treated as a renewable resource that can be increased.”

School leaders say that won’t happen. But concern over costs at Rutgers, one of the most expensive state universities in the country, is real. And it is just one of the issues confronting Rutgers as it seeks to move on following a month of turmoil that included the firing of its men’s basketball coach and the resignations of its athletic director and chief counsel, and raised questions about the leadership of university President Robert Barchi.

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