By Sergio Bichao
NEW BRUNSWICK — Sam Berman is looking at $30,000 of debt when he graduates from Rutgers University with a political science degree.
“The job market isn’t great,” the 20-year-old said Thursday as the university’s Board of Governors voted Thursday on a proposed 3.5 percent tuition increase for the upcoming school year. “I’m scared right now.”
The less than 50 students and some faculty supporters who gathered on the historic Old Queens campus to protest the planned tuition hike cited hardships such as the weak economy and a growing debt burden among college students as reasons why officials should hold the line on tuition, as some other smaller public colleges in the state have done this year.
“I see tuition increases as debt increases,” said Marios Athanasiou, a 20-year-old public policy and political science student from West Orange.
The proposed increase brings Rutgers’ tuition for a New Jersey resident to $10,718. Add room and board for students staying on campus and that cost nearly doubles. Out-of-state students will pay even more.
[…]The largest faculty union at the university said it stood by the student protestors.
“Faculty and staff salaries do not account for any proposed tuition and fee hikes,” the Rutgers chapter of the American Association of University Professors-American Federation of Teachers said in a statement.
“To increase tuition by 3.5 percent and fees by another 2.5 percent adds insult to injury for our students already struggling with mounting student debt and our faculty and staff struggling to maintain a decent standard of living.”
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