Reaching for the STARS programs a cost-effective option for top N.J. students

When top-ranked students turn down offers from four-year colleges to go to community college, people notice.

"People were shocked when I told them that I was going to Camden County," Caitlin Hale, who graduated from Eastern Regional High School in Voorhees, said, laughing. "It's not the name you're going for; it's the learning."

Like tens of thousands of students over the last decade, Hale took advantage of the New Jersey Student Tuition Assistance Reward Scholarship (NJ STARS), which offers two years of free community college tuition. She graduated from Camden County College in 2009, transferred to Stockton College to complete her biology degree, and is now in her third year at Rowan University's School of Osteopathic Medicine.

"It's the same level of education," Hale said. "It's not even like we're comparing apples to oranges. We're comparing apples to apples, but my apple was free."

President Obama has proposed a similar program nationwide. In his State of the Union address Tuesday, Obama said free community college tuition for students meeting certain academic standards could eventually make college as widespread as K-12 education.

New Jersey's experiment began in 2004, when lawmakers created the NJ STARS program in response to rising college costs and increasing student-loan debt.

"We didn't have enough money to make community college free to everyone at the time," said Assemblyman John J. Burzichelli (D., Gloucester), one of the sponsors of the legislation creating the program. "With the limited resources we had, we tied it to academics."

 

Covering costs

Originally, New Jersey paid community college tuition and fees for students graduating in the top 20 percent of their high school class. Up to three credits for developmental or remedial courses were covered. Need-based financial aid is applied first, with the state making up the difference.

The first school year, 2004-05, the state paid out $1.7 million, covering costs for 789 students.

Middle-class students, often described as being in a financial-aid hole, particularly jumped into the program, state administrators said. Based on income, their families were ineligible for need-based aid, but they could not afford college without taking out student loans.

 

'Greatest growth'

"Now, that burden of borrowing has been greatly reduced because of the NJ STARS program," said Jake Farbman, spokesman for the New Jersey Council of County Colleges, which represents the state's 19 community colleges.

"We've seen the greatest growth in students from the middle class - from students whose parents don't necessarily have the money," he said.

But free tuition is as rare as free lunch. The program teetered toward being unsustainable as students flocked in: In the 2008-09 school year, 4,326 students received $12,834,419. An additional $5,189,568 was spent that year on an NJ STARS II program, which helped cover the remaining two years of the four-year baccalaureate programs.

As the economy descended into recession, state budgets were slashed, and the STARS and STARS II programs were scaled back.

Today, high school students in the top 15 percent of their class are eligible, and STARS covers tuition but not fees. It also does not cover developmental coursework.

In the 2013-14 year, 1,976 students benefited from STARS and 940 students from STARS II, receiving a total of $7,113,964.

"The program is still successful and still very popular," said Gabrielle Charette, executive director of the state Higher Education Student Assistance Authority. "Obviously, with those changes, fewer students have taken advantage of the program. But what I think is important is we've never turned anybody away in the history of the program."

Hale decided to go to Camden County College after hearing her older brother and sister talk about the student debt they had piled on from freshman year.

"I knew eventually that I wanted to go to medical school, so I was hoping to save as much as I could," she said.

She estimates she saved $11,600 at community college and $49,000 through STARS II at Stockton.

 

Off the radar

Through the NJ STARS program, community colleges hope to attract more students like Hale, who would otherwise have gone directly from high school to a four-year college or university.

"We can reach out to a group of students who normally wouldn't go to a community college because it's not a four-year school, it doesn't have the prestige that comes with attending there," said Michael Chandon, the head of admissions and financial aid at Rowan College at Gloucester County. "We weren't even on the radar."

The program also helps community colleges boost their enrollments, which allows a greater diversity of courses, said Raymond Yannuzzi, president of Camden County College.

"We do need a volume operation; we do need to attract a fair number of students," he said. "The more students will come to us and stay with us and finish successfully, the better we are able to offer what we offer to the public."

 

'100 percent'

The changes in the STARS and STARS II programs didn't deter Crystal Pagan-Perez, 21, of Pennsauken, who is graduating this spring from Camden County College. She hopes to attend Rutgers-Camden as a STARS II student as she works her way toward a neuroscience doctorate, specializing in psychopharmacology.

"I want to save as much money during my undergraduate as possible," she said. "It was 100 percent a financial decision."

Pagan-Perez said that she knew from her freshman year at Pennsauken High that she would be trying to save what she could. In the current STARS program, she pays for fees, books, and transportation.

"When I heard about it, I thought, 'This is great, my GPA's there already,' " she said. "I knew to just keep doing what I was doing, and there would be that great reward."

The savings are reducing Pagan-Perez's college stress.

"It's a huge weight off my shoulders," she said. "It's a blessing."

 


jlai@phillynews.com

856-779-3220 @elaijuh

www.inquirer.com/campusinq


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