New Jersey Association of State Colleges and Universities committed to college opportunity for new jersey citizens

150 West State Street, Trenton, New Jersey 08608                       609-989-1100     609-989-7017 fax                   njascu@njascu.org

New Jersey has slipped from 44th to 45th position in per capita enrollment in four-year public colleges in the state, according to a recent analysis of the most current comparative data by the New Jersey Association of State Colleges and Universities (ASCU).

ASCU compared state population figures with four-year public enrollment numbers cited in a recent almanac report put out by the Washington, DC-based Chronicle of Higher Education, a national higher education newsweekly.

The analysis also conducted that to bring New Jersey up to the national mean, state colleges and universities would have to make room for an additional 71,000 students.  New Jersey enrolled 142,336 students at four-year public colleges and universities in Fall 2000, the year used for state-to-state comparisons.

Lack of four-year public college capacity has been cited frequently by the Association as a major contributor to the fact that New Jersey suffers from the nation's highest (by far) net-outmigration of high school graduates.  New Jersey has this dubious distinction because of the late development of the potential of state colleges and universities along with other reasons related to family income, geography, history and tradition.

With an enrollment of only 16.6 students per 1,000 residents, only five other states now trail New Jersey: Massachusetts (15.8), California (15.7), Washington (15.3), Illinois (15.3), and Florida (14.3).  The national mean is 24.85.

Neighbor states New York and Pennsylvania, where many New Jersey high school graduates migrate, have higher enrollment rates: 17.5 and 19.5, respectively.  ASCU estimates that to match Pennsylvania's per capita enrollment at four-year public colleges and universities, New Jersey would have to add about 25,000 students; to match New York's, about 8,000 more students would have to be enrolled.

Over the past several years, the Association has advocated the need to expand the capacity of state colleges, through incentives and investment, to serve at least 15,000-20,000 more students by 2008.  The Association has repeatedly pointed out that New Jersey also continues to be among the states with the fastest rates of increase in high school graduates during this decade.

The enrollment crunch is not viewed as an institutional planning problem but as a statewide college opportunity policy challenge by ASCU and its nine members, which are: The College of New Jersey, Kean University, Montclair State University, New Jersey City University, Ramapo College of New Jersey, Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, Rowan University, Thomas Edison State College, and William Paterson University.  For this fall's freshman class, ASCU estimates that 20,000 students applied for the available 9,000-9,500 full-time slots at the nine institutions (not counting applications to Thomas Edison which is nontraditional and has no freshman class).

ASCU has sponsored scientific public opinion polling on the enrollment capacity issue and has made specific recommendations about how New Jersey might correct this problem and other barriers to attendance by expanding college access and affordability.

ASCU is a nonprofit, nonpartisan policy advocate for the nine state colleges and universities which serve, collectively, over 85,000 undergraduate and graduate students.  The Association was created by the State of New Jersey in 1985.