Governor Christie vetoed it earlier this month, declaring it redundant.
But now, in a new legislative session, a bill creating a committee to study college affordability is moving through the Legislature again. It’s exactly the same as the one Christie vetoed Jan. 13, and its supporters can’t explain how it could become law this time. But it still passed in the Senate Higher Education Committee today.
“The governor’s veto was simply without merit,” Senate President Stephen Sweeney, the bill’s sponsor, said in a statement. “Students are drowning in debt when they graduate, an unfair burden that impacts them for years. We cannot stand on the sidelines and allow this to continue. The governor must review the facts and data on this issue and conclude there is no other option than to move forward with the commission.”
“We were devastated when the governor vetoed this bill and said that it was redundant,” Dan O’Connor, president of the New Jersey conference of the American Association of University Professors, told the committee today. “I will have been a faculty member at Rutgers University, this July, 40 years. Affordability, I can assure you, is not being addressed.”
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