Heading to community college in NJ? It will be free for some students come spring

Several thousand low-income students will be able to attend community college without tuition or fees next spring under a program Gov. Phil Murphy's office announced Tuesday.

As part of the “Community College Innovation Challenge,” New Jersey’s 19 county colleges can apply for limited spots in the pilot program, which will cover tuition and mandatory fees for students at the selected institutions who make less than $45,000 in adjusted gross income and take at least six credits in the spring 2019 semester.

The income limits may apply to individuals or families depending on students' living situations.

The $25 million that Murphy secured for the program in the current budget is intended as a first step toward fulfilling his campaign promise of making community college tuition-free for all students within four years, although it remains to be seen whether the Legislature will approve the funding to sustain or expand the program in the future.

Murphy, a Democrat, originally proposed $50 million in new tuition grants for low-income community college students, which he said would allow nearly 15,000 students to attend tuition-free, but lawmakers cut that amount in half during negotiations over the state budget in June.

The grants are known as “last-dollar” scholarships, meaning they cover whatever tuition and educational fees a student still owes after receiving any other federal, state or institutional aid. That also means that guaranteeing free tuition for higher-income students who might not qualify for other aid could prove costlier to the state.

Of the total amount appropriated for the program, $20 million will help pay for tuition and fees while $5 million will go toward planning, outreach and recruitment of eligible students by the colleges.

The average full-time student attending community college in his or her home region paid $3,853 for tuition and $1,043 in fees during the 2017-18 academic year, according to state data.

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Total state financial assistance for higher education students in New Jersey exceeds $500 million annually across all initiatives, including the Tuition Aid Grant program, which provides need-based financial aid for students at a wide range of public and private institutions.

Earlier this year, Murphy signed a law extending state financial aid to undocumented immigrants living in New Jersey.

It’s not clear how many students will benefit under the new program. That depends on the applications from the county colleges, said Jennifer Azzarano, a spokeswoman for the Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, which is implementing the pilot along with the Office of the Secretary of Higher Education.

Azzarano said there could be about 24,000 students that meet the eligibility criteria across all the colleges. Providing free tuition and fees for all of them during the spring 2019 semester would cost about $40 million, she said.

But due to limited funding, not all 19 community colleges will be selected for the pilot program, according to a notice published by the administration, although every college that applies will receive at least $250,000 to either implement the program or "build capacity" for future rounds of funding.

Applications are due by Aug. 31 and winning colleges will be selected by Sep. 28 based on their proposals to conduct outreach and provide ongoing support for students, anticipated costs and geographic diversity, according to the notice.

Murphy has pitched tuition-free community college as part of a broader strategy to improve the state's workforce development and increase its economic competitiveness. 

Other states have also tried to move toward offering tuition-free community college, although with mixed success.

A law signed last year by Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, for example, was billed as tuition-free college for the middle class but did not apply to most students due to several caveats. 

In New Jersey, more than 150,000 full- and part-time students were enrolled in community colleges in the fall of 2016, the most recent year for which data are available, and tens of thousands more participate every year in noncredit and customized training programs.

Email: pugliese@northjersey.com