@mom2and Over the past 20 years Rutgers academic reputation has at best stagnated while its quality of life has at best disintegrated.
Currently, while its flagship status is still accepted at that summer barbeques, its position among state schools in one of parity.
Quality of life cannot be compared to TCNJ or Rowan, no matter how many buses they buy to shuffle kids in and out of the six townships. Rutgers is not pleasant.
@SpacemanEd High School students have a hard time understanding that when companies get resumes they don’t grab the college rankings, especially in disciplines like engineering, accounting and nursing.
Rowan’s facilities continue to improve at a rapid rate and TCNJ will open a $100 million STEM center in late 2016.
@SternBusiness this stuff does matter.
@ScaredNJDad in line with what you said, I would much rather pay full price to attend my university than go to Rutgers for free. There’s a reason that Rutgers is so looked down upon by NJ students such as myself. There’s also a reason that nearly 40% of all college-bound NJ seniors leave the state each year (which makes it the biggest college student exporter, BTW).
The OP was deliberating in March and has no doubt made his decision.
FWIW, some of the comparison here seems to be apples and oranges. For somebody who wants a smaller, hands on experience, TCNJ and Rowan are great options. For a larger university experience, Rutgers is also a fine choice. USNWR ranks it 28th in the nation among public universities and 3rd in the NY metro area for engineering (behind Columbia and Princeton). Yes, like most public universities, it has a cumbersome bureaucracy, there will be graduate student instructors, and an undergraduate will have to work harder to get noticed. The upside is more numerous and diverse faculty, course offerings, and resources that smaller institutions will have difficulty matching.
@mamaedefamilia Rowan isn’t all that small. 13,500 undergraduates.
@LBad96, Well, Rowan’s student population of 12,000 is about 18% of RU’s 66,000. Relatively speaking, that’s quite a bit smaller. It is certainly closer in size to TCNJ’s 6,500.
As NJ is such a densely populated state, I’m not surprised that a large % of students go elsewhere. It is also a relatively affluent state and surrounded by states that offer many educational choices within a four to six hour drive. I don’t think that it follows necessarily that the quality of higher education offered in the state is bad.
@mamaedefamilia you are on to something, but the higher ed institutions in NJ are quite weak. Outside of the top five (Princeton, TCNJ, Stevens, Rutgers, Rowan in that order imo), there’s nothing to be excited about at all. I always told myself that the only way I would have attended my in-state private safety school is if literally every other school I applied to had denied me.
Rowan Engineering is probably the best “fit” for you. TCNJ next, because overall student quality is very high and the overall academics are strong across the board, the school is small, but engineering isn’t its strongest subject yet (although it’s improving so by the time you graduate you should be good). Rutgers last because you don’t want a big school.
As long as your program is ABET accredited, you don’t have to worry about finding a job. School name matters little in engineering for the purpose of finding a job, ABET accreditation is the most important and internships/job placements and actual knowledge (including hands-on projects) are more important.
Are you looking at other colleges?
If you are eligible for full tuition + free housing at Rowan, your stats must be sufficient for you to look into other engineering universities.
TCNJ has already broken ground on brand new STEM facility $100,000,000. Will be fully completed 2017.