<p>Any one else mislead by the claims that NJStars makes? I'll be graduating from county college in a few weeks, and i feel like i have been royally screwed over by the system. I wanted to know what anyone else thought, or hear your stories.</p>
<p>Being from NJ myself, I’m curious to know why you feel you’ve been misled? What was ‘advertised’ and not delivered?</p>
<p>In short, they make advertise it as going to college for free, they pay for your two year college and then they split the four year with the school. However, I am paying for both my county college tuition and four year tuition ( not all, and not as much as without this assistance, but still more then I thought I would have to ). This is all because I recieve financial aid. The way the law is worded is tricky, and they take from any financial aid you receive and then they pay, but only to a certain amount of credits. All the extra credits I need to graduate, along with books and gas and extra that financial aid should cover, they take. </p>
<p>As you can see I am not happy, I receive financial aid for a reason and I never see a dollar of it.</p>
<p>I’m from NJ too! I heard Corzine will probably be taking NJ Stars away, along with the Bloustein Scholarship. Good thing TCNJ guarantees the $4000 over the four years.
I’m sorry this happened. :(</p>
<p>You expect financial aid to pay for your gas? I didn’t think that was usually part of financial aid?</p>
<p>I expect financial aid to cover school expenses books, supplies and yes at a county college gas would be a part of that. Even scholarships that could have been awarded to me, would have gone to the school and in turn NJStars, and I would have seen none of it.</p>
<p>I dont see why gas for a CC attendee should be any different than misc or dorm at a residential college.</p>
<p>That being said, many colleges deduct outside scholarships from other aid.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how financial aid affects the NJSTARS program, but all the material I’ve read seems pretty clear that it will only cover mandatory fees along with the tuition piece. Nothing is ever said about books or other costs.</p>
<p>As for the poster who suggested that gas costs make sense in comparison to dorm costs, I must disagree. Living on campus is, in most cases, a choice…not mandatory. I don’t think its reasonable for a scholarship program to pay for your gas to get you to and from school.</p>
<p>either way, my tuition isn’t being paid.</p>
<p>You mean none of your tuition is covered? I’m not following…</p>
<p>^^^Somthing similar actually happened to my friend. Although we live in Warren County, she chose to attend Morris County Community College. Everything was supposed to tranfser to MCCC, but this didn’t happen and now she has to pay all of the tuition.</p>
<p>Want some cheese to go with that wine?</p>
<p>The list of items that you expected to be covered by the NJStars program is just amazing. By reading the fine print of the program (and yes, I have read it), you would have known from the begining that gas and books would not be covered. </p>
<p>Why not just be happy that you are getting any financial assistance? My daughter was homeschooled and even with top grades (verified by an outside source) she was not eligible for the NJStars program because she was homeschooled. We had to look for scholarship money from other sources even though our tax money helps to fund the NJStars program.</p>
<p>bookreader-
That is really awful. Seems like the NJ Stars program could account for homeschooled students to qualify. Sorry to hear they don’t.</p>
<p>Yes, the program could include them if they wanted to. We looked into it very closely, but it clearly is written to exclude homeschoolers.</p>
<p>And she was already a member of the community college honors society (PTK), when we was applying as a high school senior. (She’d taken so many college classes while in high school that she qualified for the honor society.)</p>
<p>Bookreader-
I am sorry that your daughter wasn’t covered under NJStars, and that is not fair.</p>
<p>I’m not saying that I expect financial aid to cover for expenses and such, it just seems ridiculous to me that they are able to take money given on a “need-basis”, then take it back from those in NJStars. I feel as though they are using this money to pay for a student whose parents are wealthier, and do not recieve financial aid. Merit-based and need-based scholarships are two totally different things. </p>
<p>I am grateful that I have recieved this much financial aid, I am. When I enrolled in CC, my four year was to be paid for in full, and since the change in legislation it is no longer adn they couldn’t “grandfather” those students into the old law. Yet, we also do not qualify for the new legislation that covers more county credits. </p>
<p>I understand they were trying to get rid of the program entirely, and that it is money that is helping me. Yet, I feel they are not only changing the rules in the middle, but also taking money that could potentially go to a student who needs it more.</p>