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OT: What is the deal with Rutgers New Brunswick giving out academic scholarships

daveo13

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Jul 25, 2013
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My daughter has been accepted into some really good schools and getting the highest merit scholarships that can be granted thru these institutions. She is an semi finalist for the Banner Key merit scholarship at Maryland. Rutgers New Brunswick, nada, nothing, zilch. RU Newark she received 15k. I just don’t feel okay for her safety there. She is a very good student, volunteers, plays sports in HS. How does a NJ student get more from out of state institutions and receive a snub from the State University of NJ, just don’t get it.
 
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New Jersey is last in the nation in support of its’ public colleges. I think N.J. is now under 20 percent contribution to Rutgers.One of my nephews was admitted to both Rutgers and the University of Florida. He chose UF and goes there for just about the same amount. By the way, I went to the Newark campus of Rutgers and never had any issues at all. And that was when the campus was much smaller, before any dorms and the just opened Honors College.
 
My daughter has been accepted into some really good schools and getting the highest merit scholarships that can be granted thru these institutions. She is an semi finalist for the Banner Key merit scholarship at Maryland. Rutgers New Brunswick, nada, nothing, zilch. RU Newark she received 15k. I just don’t feel okay for her safety there. She is a very good student, volunteers, plays sports in HS. How does a NJ student get more from out of state institutions and receive a snub from the State University of NJ, just don’t get it.
I was in the same situation many many moons ago. National merit scholarship finalist, scholarship offers from Maryland's honors program. Money from Penn State's honors program, partial scholarships from several very good private schools... not a single cent offered from RU.
 
My daughter has been accepted into some really good schools and getting the highest merit scholarships that can be granted thru these institutions. She is an semi finalist for the Banner Key merit scholarship at Maryland. Rutgers New Brunswick, nada, nothing, zilch. RU Newark she received 15k. I just don’t feel okay for her safety there. She is a very good student, volunteers, plays sports in HS. How does a NJ student get more from out of state institutions and receive a snub from the State University of NJ, just don’t get it.

I thought scholarships at Rutgers were need-based, like at the Ivy League schools. I didn’t realize there were any academic scholarship ps.
 
It actually works the opposite of how you envision it. Schools that are looking for geographical diversification and academic boost are more willing to provide incentives. RU is probably more willing to give an out of state top student a scholarship so they can say they have students from all 50 states.
 
Rutgers doesn’t have trouble getting kids from all states and countries. It is not like we are SUNY-Plattsburgh. We have received a boost in the Midwest too since we joined the Big Ten. Something is wrong in Trenton, though, when the scholarship issues continue for decades, regardless of party.
 
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My daughter was accepted to engineering schools at several elite universities and we also made her apply to RU. Upon RU acceptance, which included honors college, she received no initial financial offer, however, when she officially notified RU she would not be attending, RU countered with an offer of essentially full payment of tuition. We would have only had to pay R&B. Maybe declining the offer does the trick as long as the academic qualifications are high enough ?
 
Daughter was a NJ H.S. Valedictorian, national merit finalist, was admitted to the honors program and they did a nice job recruiting her, was awarded several grants that ended up pretty much covering tuition, room and board, got nada from the ivy's other than admission. Had a great four years and Went on to grad school at UVA. Son did pretty much the same thing honors college and a nice scholarship package. I would spend some time checking the honors college programs they do have non need based scholarship monies available
 
They used to give out scholarships if your SAT score was above a certain number (at least they did around 2011). Covered tuition only, not room and board. Did they stop that?
 
Newell, I think Knightshifts son went to Monmouth County High Tech High School, if it is the same one. Haven’t seen him on here as much lately.
 
Rutgers NB offers limited merit scholarships to top applicants. Generally my students who get money are Honors College or school based honors programs at least.

I’ve been told they will likely come out soon, earlier than advertised. They were originally supposed to be released late in March. Honors decisions came out last week.

I didn’t hear from any students yet this week, so not sure if they came out yet

In recent years, I’ve seen merit money range from a few thousand to nearly full.
 
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My daughter has been accepted into some really good schools and getting the highest merit scholarships that can be granted thru these institutions. She is an semi finalist for the Banner Key merit scholarship at Maryland. Rutgers New Brunswick, nada, nothing, zilch. RU Newark she received 15k. I just don’t feel okay for her safety there. She is a very good student, volunteers, plays sports in HS. How does a NJ student get more from out of state institutions and receive a snub from the State University of NJ, just don’t get it.
1) After 70 years of almost uninterrupted democrat rule NJ is literally bankrupt. “The problem with socialism, is that eventually you run out of other peoples money.
2) if she is Caucasian, then that could be a factor as well. Rutgers is one of the leading institutions of modern socialist thought and right now we are living through the “great white purge”, where whiteness is considered a liability and people of color are “given preference” over white people no matter how deserving they may be.
 
She did get invited to send her application to the Honors College so I guess we will see where that goes.
 
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My daughter has been accepted into some really good schools and getting the highest merit scholarships that can be granted thru these institutions. She is an semi finalist for the Banner Key merit scholarship at Maryland. Rutgers New Brunswick, nada, nothing, zilch. RU Newark she received 15k. I just don’t feel okay for her safety there. She is a very good student, volunteers, plays sports in HS. How does a NJ student get more from out of state institutions and receive a snub from the State University of NJ, just don’t get it.
FYI - my daughter just got accepted to the Honors College and was offered $10,000 scholarship. Seems like RU is always short of cash.
 
1) After 70 years of almost uninterrupted democrat rule NJ is literally bankrupt. “The problem with socialism, is that eventually you run out of other peoples money.
2) if she is Caucasian, then that could be a factor as well. Rutgers is one of the leading institutions of modern socialist thought and right now we are living through the “great white purge”, where whiteness is considered a liability and people of color are “given preference” over white people no matter how deserving they may be.
Someone had to say it.
 
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They used to give out scholarships if your SAT score was above a certain number (at least they did around 2011). Covered tuition only, not room and board. Did they stop that?
SAT is now optional due to COVID. will be interesting to see if that will last.
 
My daughter has been accepted into some really good schools and getting the highest merit scholarships that can be granted thru these institutions. She is an semi finalist for the Banner Key merit scholarship at Maryland. Rutgers New Brunswick, nada, nothing, zilch. RU Newark she received 15k. I just don’t feel okay for her safety there. She is a very good student, volunteers, plays sports in HS. How does a NJ student get more from out of state institutions and receive a snub from the State University of NJ, just don’t get it.
This is not at all surprising and logical. Maryland is going to be much more expensive for out of state kids so they throw some scholarship money at it to try and attract great out of state kids.

newark throws money at good kids to attract them to their campus.

college marketing 101.
 
My daughter has been accepted into some really good schools and getting the highest merit scholarships that can be granted thru these institutions. She is an semi finalist for the Banner Key merit scholarship at Maryland. Rutgers New Brunswick, nada, nothing, zilch. RU Newark she received 15k. I just don’t feel okay for her safety there. She is a very good student, volunteers, plays sports in HS. How does a NJ student get more from out of state institutions and receive a snub from the State University of NJ, just don’t get it.
A lot of it is region based. When they fill up on one area they move on to another area.
 
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spoke to a registrar at the university - commented that based on the amount of state aid RU receives we should be deemed a private university.

Not exactly an unbiased source. Ever meet a college administrator who was satisfied with state funding?

And there's another factor at work. Not really with Maryland, who's endowment is minimal, but with the other schools RU competes with. Michigan in particular, with it's $12.8 billion endowment, but UNC, UVA and others have a lot more money to dedicate to scholarships than RU that doesn't come from a state legislature.
 
FWIW - and this is a VERY long time ago- I got a full scholarship plus stipend for the MBA program because I asked after my first semester (I also pulled all A except for one A- that first semester)

I was really struggling to pay for it, but I was shocked with what they came back with
 
I've talked for years on this board how bad NJ is in supporting state schools. It's a disgrace that NJ residents tolerate this but then again so many disrespect their state college and gleefully send their kids out of state without even considering a great school like RU. The good news is that attitude is slowly changing.
 
It actually works the opposite of how you envision it. Schools that are looking for geographical diversification and academic boost are more willing to provide incentives. RU is probably more willing to give an out of state top student a scholarship so they can say they have students from all 50 states.
chasing those USN&WR ranking points
 
My daughter has been accepted into some really good schools and getting the highest merit scholarships that can be granted thru these institutions. She is an semi finalist for the Banner Key merit scholarship at Maryland. Rutgers New Brunswick, nada, nothing, zilch. RU Newark she received 15k. I just don’t feel okay for her safety there. She is a very good student, volunteers, plays sports in HS. How does a NJ student get more from out of state institutions and receive a snub from the State University of NJ, just don’t get it.

The share of money Rutgers receives for students has declined from the state paying 60% of a student's tuition to 30% in the last 25 or so years.

Rutgers gives a lot of academic scholarships to students who are already in the school; SAS at least has SAS excellence awards and I know other schools do as well, along with further need based aid. So the amount of money going in is not often the amount of money going out if you're doing well.
 
The share of money Rutgers receives for students has declined from the state paying 60% of a student's tuition to 30% in the last 25 or so years.

Rutgers gives a lot of academic scholarships to students who are already in the school; SAS at least has SAS excellence awards and I know other schools do as well, along with further need based aid. So the amount of money going in is not often the amount of money going out if you're doing well.
30% is high - the official number that Rutgers says is 10%. My alma mater, which I went to OOS, is currently getting <11% of its funding from the state. It's happening to state universities all over the country.
 
30% is high - the official number that Rutgers says is 10%. My alma mater, which I went to OOS, is currently getting <11% of its funding from the state. It's happening to state universities all over the country.

And funding probably kept up with the overall rate of inflation but fell far short of college inflation. Of course there is Purdue and Mitch Daniels. Tuition has not been raised by one dime during the 6 years of his presidency and it still seems like a prestigeous university. A budget hawk.
 
There's a few significant dynamics at play here.

1. Rutgers has not had the history of donations that nearly every other school of its size and like have had. Many of those donations are typically for scholarships and endowment funds that need to be built up over the years before they start distributing scholarships. Thats why at Rutgers you're much much more likely to get a scholarship for a specific program (Honors college, engineering program, etc.) because those programs have specific scholarship funds that have been established. You can't forget that Rutgers Univ NB used to actually be 5 different colleges, each having their own scholarships but no headline scholarships for general admission into Rutgers University. That only started being built up less than 10 years ago. And our annual giving/donations only become respectable about 7 years ago (still near or at the bottom of the B1G though)

2. Rutgers accepts significantly fewer out of state students than its peers in the B1G conference. The tution delta is significant (for the same product and services) and its essentially an additional profit margin for schools who bring out of staters in at a high rate. Penn St is notorious for this. Offering scholarships to a few bright students accomplishes many goals, including making your school more desirable to the scholarship earning student's classmates. Rutgers needs to simply accept more out of state students just to increase revenue.

3. State aid to Rutgers is an absolute disgrace. Been steeply declining for decades. We are the highest taxed state in the US and we have some of the best K-12 public schools. But essentially RU (or just NJ universities as a whole) hasn't had the advocate in Trenton its needed over the many many years.


.... to sum this up. Rutgers donors have been increasing their giving and more scholarships will be available in the future. Rutgers SHOULD increase their revenue by accepting a higher % of out of state students (but this makes it harder for NJ students to obtain admission). And lastly, state financial aid is likely to continue to decline and further putting NJ colleges in a survive on your own setting.
 
SirScarletKnight, I could be wrong, but I don’t believe we get anywhere near 30 percent. I think it is somewhere between 17-19 percent. Don’t quote me on that.
 
I don't believe NJ is last among the 50 states in budget support for its public schools and colleges but it's likely in the bottom 5. Meanwhile, its near the top in terms of K-12 funding which contributes to pumping out strong HS grads.

Like Trenton, Harrisburg has tightened the purse strings on PA colleges over the years. In Virginia the same thing has been done. Both might be lower than 20 or 25% in recent years. A few public flagships have larger endowments that could help offset this somewhat but who knows how much they're actually able to lean on that or even do utilize those funds to subsidize tuition.

Rutgers-NB is in the position where it doesn't have as much to throw around, yet it does try to retain as many of NJ's best & brightest by dangling some $ (yet some of these students are also vying for admission at other strong schools (privates or public OOS) and might be more interested in going "away" to those anyway). Rutgers has started to become more aggressive (as many high profile OOS publics have for some time) in attracting more OOS students, which to some degree will be at the expense of NJ students. Rutgers-NB just can't be all things to all people as it's not feasible. It should do the best it can at load balancing each incoming class with the available scholarship funds. I assume that's what the enrollment management folks are paid to do.
 
SirScarletKnight, I could be wrong, but I don’t believe we get anywhere near 30 percent. I think it is somewhere between 17-19 percent. Don’t quote me on that.
You're probably right, that number may have been from seven years ago. It's weird how time flies! 😅

(I may also be misremembering something)

There's a few significant dynamics at play here.

1. Rutgers has not had the history of donations that nearly every other school of its size and like have had. Many of those donations are typically for scholarships and endowment funds that need to be built up over the years before they start distributing scholarships. Thats why at Rutgers you're much much more likely to get a scholarship for a specific program (Honors college, engineering program, etc.) because those programs have specific scholarship funds that have been established. You can't forget that Rutgers Univ NB used to actually be 5 different colleges, each having their own scholarships but no headline scholarships for general admission into Rutgers University. That only started being built up less than 10 years ago. And our annual giving/donations only become respectable about 7 years ago (still near or at the bottom of the B1G though)

2. Rutgers accepts significantly fewer out of state students than its peers in the B1G conference. The tution delta is significant (for the same product and services) and its essentially an additional profit margin for schools who bring out of staters in at a high rate. Penn St is notorious for this. Offering scholarships to a few bright students accomplishes many goals, including making your school more desirable to the scholarship earning student's classmates. Rutgers needs to simply accept more out of state students just to increase revenue.

3. State aid to Rutgers is an absolute disgrace. Been steeply declining for decades. We are the highest taxed state in the US and we have some of the best K-12 public schools. But essentially RU (or just NJ universities as a whole) hasn't had the advocate in Trenton its needed over the many many years.


.... to sum this up. Rutgers donors have been increasing their giving and more scholarships will be available in the future. Rutgers SHOULD increase their revenue by accepting a higher % of out of state students (but this makes it harder for NJ students to obtain admission). And lastly, state financial aid is likely to continue to decline and further putting NJ colleges in a survive on your own setting.

This is a very strong point, and is a good part of why there are so many school specific academic excellence awards given out.
 
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I don't believe NJ is last among the 50 states in budget support for its public schools and colleges but it's likely in the bottom 5. Meanwhile, its near the top in terms of K-12 funding which contributes to pumping out strong HS grads.

Like Trenton, Harrisburg has tightened the purse strings on PA colleges over the years. In Virginia the same thing has been done. Both might be lower than 20 or 25% in recent years. A few public flagships have larger endowments that could help offset this somewhat but who knows how much they're actually able to lean on that or even do utilize those funds to subsidize tuition.

Rutgers-NB is in the position where it doesn't have as much to throw around, yet it does try to retain as many of NJ's best & brightest by dangling some $ (yet some of these students are also vying for admission at other strong schools (privates or public OOS) and might be more interested in going "away" to those anyway). Rutgers has started to become more aggressive (as many high profile OOS publics have for some time) in attracting more OOS students, which to some degree will be at the expense of NJ students. Rutgers-NB just can't be all things to all people as it's not feasible. It should do the best it can at load balancing each incoming class with the available scholarship funds. I assume that's what the enrollment management folks are paid to do.
I'm familiar with Virginia (lots of friends down there) - UVA and W&M get 10%, JMU gets >25%, VT is around 20%. not sure about the other state schools like ODU and VCU.

The flagship schools are getting squeezed hard because of the perception of having enough endowment and donors to cover some of the gap. Instead, I am getting almost daily emails and monthly flyers soliciting donations because my school is claiming poverty.
 
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I've talked for years on this board how bad NJ is in supporting state schools. It's a disgrace that NJ residents tolerate this but then again so many disrespect their state college and gleefully send their kids out of state without even considering a great school like RU. The good news is that attitude is slowly changing.
This is a good point. State funding to RU is pathetic. That said, sure seems like sometimes the same people complaining about the cost of RU send their children out-of-state to Norte Dame, Michigan, Villanova, etc for $65k/year instead.
 
The share of money Rutgers receives for students has declined from the state paying 60% of a student's tuition to 30% in the last 25 or so years.

Rutgers gives a lot of academic scholarships to students who are already in the school; SAS at least has SAS excellence awards and I know other schools do as well, along with further need based aid. So the amount of money going in is not often the amount of money going out if you're doing well.
This seems fair...shows us what you got and we’ll work with you.

I like it.
 
What I hear way too much is “all our tax dollars going to Rutgers Sports” when it is something like 25 cents per New Jerseyan.
 
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