By Patricia Alex, Staff Writer, The Record
Governor Christie derided Giancarlo Tello and the group he was with as “professional protesters” at a recent town hall meeting, but officials at Rutgers University saw something else in the 24-year-old activist.
Tello was a leader in the successful fight to gain in-state tuition rates at New Jersey’s public colleges and universities for students like himself who are in the country illegally. And now he is getting his education paid for by Rutgers-Newark, which has awarded him a two-year scholarship worth at least $22,000 to return to his studies.
“Truly outstanding students should be supported at a public university,” said Peter T. Englot, senior vice chancellor at the Newark campus.
Englot said discussions were under way about tapping private donors for a scholarship fund at the state university in Newark to pay for more students who are ineligible for state and federal loans and grants because they are here illegally.
The scholarship marks a watershed moment for Tello, who has a waiver allowing him to remain in the country temporarily; his parents now have legal status and his younger sister, who was born here, is a citizen. But on a broader level, the move by Rutgers signals another foothold in the state for students who are in the country illegally and puts the state university on one side of a contentious issue that has divided the country.
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