A scholarship program that every year helps thousands of top New Jersey high-school students attend community college without paying tuition is in jeopardy.
The budget proposed last month by Gov. Christopher J. Christie, a Republican, would not pay for any new students to begin the program this fall. However, it would continue to subsidize the tuition and fees of students already in the program, which was created in 2004 and is one of the most generous community-college aid programs offered by a state.
High-school and college counselors were already recruiting new students for the New Jersey Student Tuition Assistance Reward Scholarship, or NJ Stars, program, unaware that the proposed cut was coming. The program guarantees that students in the top 15 percent of their high-school graduating class can attend their local community college without paying tuition or fees. Those students are also eligible for more aid, under the NJ Stars II program, if they transfer to a four-year college after earning an associate degree.
The scholarship was established as an incentive to keep the best students in the state, and advocates of the program say ending the aid would be a major setback for that goal.
The possible closure of NJ Stars to new recipients has also left many students, who had hoped to use the aid to attend one of the state’s 19 community colleges this fall, scrambling to find money to cover their costs.
Lawrence A. Nespoli, president of the New Jersey Council of County Colleges, said he has been communicating with the governor’s office to try to figure out a way to keep the scholarship program for this year’s high-school graduating class. The legislature is not expected to vote on a final budget until late June.
“Our hope is that we can come up with an alternative that the governor and legislature can support,” he said.
Eliminating a new freshman class from the Stars program would save the state about $1.7-million, according to the governor’s proposal. The budget would increase money for the scholarship by about $1.5-million, to just over $20-million, for students already in NJ Stars I and II.
The plan to close the scholarship to new students is part of the governor’s proposal to cut state spending on higher education by a total of $173-million, or 7.7 percent, for the next fiscal year.
‘Victim of Its Own Success’
This is not the first time that New Jersey officials have sought to scale back the scholarship program.
It originally covered community-college tuition for the top 20 percent of high-school graduates. The program enrolled 933 students its first year and grew rapidly, becoming more costly than officials anticipated. Large numbers of students started to see the value of attending a community college, especially as tuition increased at four-year institutions.
In December 2008, with almost 5,300 students attending community college through the program, the legislature reduced eligibility to the top 15 percent of high-school graduates and also cut the annual maximum award for the NJ Stars II scholarship to $7,000 from $11,000.
“It became a victim of its own success,” Mr. Nespoli says.
Last fall there were 4,320 NJ Stars recipients enrolled in the state’s community colleges and 1,666 students with NJ Stars II scholarships enrolled in public four-year colleges.
Maud Fried-Goodnight, executive director of enrollment, academic, and support services at Cumberland County College, says the scholarship program has especially helped students who are among the first generation of their families to attend college.
“A lot of these students never even thought about college,” Ms. Fried-Goodnight says. “And now they are enrolled.”
Cumberland has 280 students who receive the NJ Stars aid, including 75 scholarship students who enrolled last fall. The college had expected about the same number of new students to enroll with the Stars money this coming fall.
For now the college continues to hold information sessions about the program even though its future is in doubt. It is also encouraging students and families to write to the legislature in support of the scholarship.
“The program is just too important,” Ms. Fried-Goodnight says. “Every effort should be made to save it.”