<p>My dad is a state auditor for the state of NJ. My father says that the only scholarships that will available will be for PSAT scores, can anyone tell me if this is true.</p>
<p>Well I don't know if it's necessarily true, but considering the current status of NJ education I would definitely bet that scholarship availability will be seriously declining in the next few years.</p>
<p>Maybe Rutgers will continue to give scholarships for National Merit Scholars... That's really the only thing that comes out of the PSATs.</p>
<p>We have to wait and see if Rutgers will give money out to students for high SAT scores/class rank. That remains a real possibility, even if the standards are raised or the schlarships are reduced by however much. In any case, we know that the state won't be giving over money for that purpose anymore.</p>
<p>And I suppose that National Merit scholarships are given by the National Merit Assoc. or something, right? Because if they're given by Rutgers, I don't see how that's not subject to change as well.</p>
<p>I have heard that Rutgers was very generous in the past. I also have heard from my neighbor. She has a D at Rutgers who graduated from a NJ public with a 4.0 and took challenging classes, and 1270 (old SAT). She is currently a junior at Rutgers, and when she was admitted as an instate student she was not given 5 cents in merit scholarship money, or financial aid. The family is paying the full freight, and this is before the budget cuts.</p>
<p>Rutgers had a rubric on how much money you would get. You needed at least a 1350 to get anything.</p>
<p>^Well that explains it. It is kind of sad though since the student has a 4.0 and Rutger's instate costs are so high, and rising another 8% for instate students, at least this is my understanding.</p>
<p>Rutgers used to have a rubric for scholarhips. And no, you didn't need to have a 1350, it was based on a combination of your class rank and SAT scores. Thus if someone was in the top 5% of his or her hs class and had an sat score somewhere in the range of 1500-1600 they got a full ride, but if they had like a 1200-1290 I believe they got somewhere around 4,000 a year.</p>
<p>This rubric for scholarship awards was not Rutgers alone. it was known as the Outstanding Scholars Program. Every public NJ college followed this since it was funded by NJ.</p>
<p>But Corzine screwed all of us NJ people and got rid of OSP.</p>
<p>If you're interested in reading more about Corzine's crazy budget and the chaos going on in NJ here are a couple links</p>
<p>Basically any NJ student won't be going to a public university unless they absolutely love them (some do, most don't) because (rutgers for example) it'll cost around $18,000 a year total. If someone was eligible for the OSP they are likely to receive some type of scholarship from out of state schools as well, this award could lower the out of state cost to the same as Rutgers in-state. Then the decision from here is whether or not you'd like to go to a state school with no financial help, or go to an out of state public/private that might be considered a better school for your major. </p>
<p>In the end, Corzine's decision to cut a measely $4.3 million dollar program, something that NJ students such as myself have relied on for when they graduate high school and are now screwed (going to a public in-state makes no sense now), has had major consequences. He's causing countless high school graduates to leave NJ to go to out of state schools. When this is done, they are more likely to find coop/intern jobs in the cities that they go to school in, and thus more likely to take a job there and move out of NJ which is certainly not too beneficial to the NJ economy.</p>
<p><a href="http://studentaid.rutgers.edu/aid/osrp.asp%5B/url%5D">http://studentaid.rutgers.edu/aid/osrp.asp</a> Yeap, I was wrong. So that daughter should have gotten $4000 a year, unless 4.0 wasnt top 5% in her school. I agree with everything else you said though.... it was a really stupid decision by Corzine.</p>