By Kelly Heyboer/ The Star-Ledger
NEWARK — Facing a growing revolt on the Newark campus, Rutgers University President Robert Barchi released never-before-seen numbers today to dispute allegations the school is pouring money into its main New Brunswick campus while shortchanging students on the smaller Newark and Camden campuses.
The new calculations by the university’s budgeting office show Rutgers spends about $13,969 per student each year on instruction on the New Brunswick campus, compared to $12,104 per student at Rutgers-Camden and $11,870 per student at Rutgers-Newark.
“There are small differences between campuses, but nowhere near the magnitude that’s being implied,” Barchi said. “The differences are relatively small.”
Barchi, who is nearing the end of his first school year at Rutgers, outlined the numbers during a wide-ranging meeting with The Star-Ledger’s editorial board in Newark, during which he also discussed the university’s recent basketball scandal, athletic funding and other issues.
Armed with 10 pages of new data, Barchi said he first wanted to clarify numbers being circulated by his critics that show the university spends $15,092 per year on each student in New Brunswick-Piscataway, compared to $8,070 in Newark. Those numbers, drawn from federal data, have raised serious questions from lawmakers in Trenton about how the state university is spending its money.
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