Tuition Increase Approved By Rutgers Board Of Governors

Tuition and fees at Rutgers University will increase by 2.3 percent for the 2015-16 academic year.

The Rutgers Board of Governors approved the tuition and fee increase Thursday, but the panel also voted to approve a 3.2 percent increase in financial aid grants for students, according to a news release from the University.

In-state tuition and fees for the typical, full-time Arts and Sciences undergraduate at the New Brunswick campus will be $14,131 in 2015-16.

With room and board, that figure rises to a total of $26,185.

Those figures do not include grant offsets, but at least half of Rutgers students on each campus receive grant aid.

According to that news release:

The tuition increase is less than the school’s average over the last four years.

During that time frame, tuition and fee increases ranged from 2.4 percent to 2.6 percent at the school’s three campuses, and those increases “all ranked among the lowest for their respective peer groups.”

The board also voted to allocate an additional 3.2 percent in the Rutgers Assistance Grant program to make sure “Rutgers remains accessible to a broad range of New Jersey residents.”

That increase in the Rutgers Assistance Grant program will supplement increased state funding for the Tuition Aid Grant (TAG) and Educational Opportunity Fund (EOF) programs used by thousands of Rutgers students annually.

At the New Brunswick campus, 50 percent of students receive grant aid. On the Newark campus, 62 percent receive grant aid and in Camden, 65 percent receive grant aid.

“Rutgers University is committed to delivering a world-class education at the most affordable price possible and the combined actions by the Board of Governors deliver on that commitment,” Greg Brown, chair of the Rutgers University Board of Governors, said in a prepared statement.

“The tuition increases at Rutgers University-New Brunswick have been among the lowest of our peer major public research universities across America,” Brown said. “The increases at Rutgers University-Newark and Rutgers University-Camden are similarly low by comparison to their peers.”

The board faced a 3.7 percent reduction in direct state operating funds for Rutgers. It also recently settled employee union contracts and was facing other mandatory cost increases, the news release said.

“In the face of significant financial challenges for public colleges and universities nationwide, I am proud that Rutgers can continue to offer high-quality academic programs while keeping tuition and fee increases to a minimum,” Robert Barchi, university president, said in a prepared statement. “I commend our faculty and staff at Rutgers for their ongoing commitment to excellence in teaching, research and service to the people of New Jersey.”