A Falling NJ STARS Program Needs Fixing to Restore Luster
Darryl G. Greer
Executive Director/CEO, ASCU
Trenton Times - May 13, 2008
The NJ STARS II program, a well-meaning but hastily constructed scholarship program that was created in slightly better fiscal times, is losing its luster and needs fixing.
The original NJ STARS program, created in 2004, enables students in the top 20 percent of their New Jersey high school class to get free tuition at county colleges. The state currently pays for this. The program has helped to increase enrollment at the county colleges and improve the academic credentials of their entering students. In theory, because the scholarship would be open to a segment of students from all New Jersey high schools, including ones in disadvantaged areas, NJ STARS would help get more low-income students on the road toward a college degree, beginning with the county colleges.
Two years later, NJ STARS II was conceived and advanced by the legislature with strong support from the county colleges. Originally, it was envisioned as a voucher-type program for successful NJ STARS students wishing to transfer to four-year public colleges; it did not contain a promise of fully covering tuition at senior public universities. Later, it was changed to add this promise, despite the fact that funding for it covered only about one-half the cost of senior college/university tuition and fees. The state colleges supported the half-funded scholarship warily, leaning on the Legislature's promise to help provide adequate funds should it become a major new unfunded mandate. It has since become such a mandate, costing senior colleges millions of dollars, yet the avowed state financial support has not occurred. And no such scholarship exists for talented students enrolling at senior public universities. Indeed, the successful one New Jersey had, Outstanding Scholar Recruitment Program, has been phased out.
NJ STARS II is now laden with problems and unintended consequences that do not serve its original policy purpose, some of which have been spotlighted at recent budget hearings and in the press.
Unfulfilled Goals. NJ STARS was promoted, at least partially, as a program to help more talented disadvantaged students attend college. As it turns out, many thrifty upper middle-income families jumped on the program quickly and word of mouth spread. At some institutions, the average income of NJ STARS II students' families is now as high as that for all students from families entering four-year colleges.
The program was also expected to draw top academic achievers. Yet, a surprising number of those who qualify for NJ STARS, 30 percent in fact, have been found to need remedial help before they take college-credit courses.
Underestimated Costs. Fully funding NJ STARS II in its current form is expected to cost the state's senior public colleges and universities a total of about $5 million next year. This is because this merit-based aid program as designed has been a poor fit with major state and federal need-based aid grants and Pell grants. The notion that state and federal aid would cover the balance of tuition and fee costs, an idea used to sell the program to senior college leaders, was shattered as soon as colleges got experience with the family incomes of NJ STARS II scholars. The costs to the state and institutions will jump next year because enrollment will increase more than 50 percent.
Over-promising. NJ STARS II marketing by county colleges creates unrealistic, over optimistic expectations about the costs of going to college. Advertisements promote going to college tuition-free. In reality, the state colleges have room for only about 4,000 new county college transfers each year, regardless of whether they are NJ STARS scholars. Moreover, there is not enough room for the roughly 21,000-22,000 prospective first-time full-time students who apply to the nine state colleges and universities each year. Furthermore, the governor and Legislature are looking for ways to rein in STARS funding. The state simply can't afford it, as programs are being cut and other student aid is being rationed.
The NJ STARS II program is emerging as an unaffordable poorly conceived, middle-class entitlement for some students that neither the state nor the colleges and universities are prepared to fund fully. Beyond the program's funding problems, its policy purposes remain unclear: whom it should serve and why; how it facilitates college access and affordability; and how it complements other student aid programs. In the meantime, here is what should be done:
The award should be limited to what the state can afford and no more, not requiring senior colleges to fund it, and not taking money from other important need-based student financial aid.
The lesson learned is that New Jersey should not create major new student aid programs without taking a close look first at how such programs can be funded to assist all their intended beneficiaries. This axiom is particularly important in these extremely tough budget times and at a time when college opportunity is so critical to the state's future prosperity.