TCNJ vs Rowan vs NJIT Electrical Engineering

We are trying to decide among TCNJ, Rowan and NJIT for the electrical engineering program. My son received decent scholarship and grants from each school. Not taking into account loans. Net cost of attendance do not differ by much, about $2.5K difference between the cheapest (Rowan) and most expensive (TCNJ). So setting aside the cost equation aside and trying to decide on other factors. He is also accepted into Honors College at both TCNJ and Rowan.

Looked at rankings from US News, Forbes, Money, Niche. Rowan appears to be ranked the lowest among the 3 for top national school and average starting salary. Understand that this are average across all programs so do not necessarily reflect the average for the engineering program. Also, salary ranking probably wasn’t adjusted for geographical location (North Jersey/NYC vs. South Jersey/Philly) and for greater number of graduates in non engineering field that have lower salaries (Rowan).

From our research, NJIT is highly regarded as a technical research school with a track reputation. TCNJ is also more selective. Rowan, on the other hand, has transformed from a state college for graduating students who become school teachers to a full fledged national school with a medical school and a competitive engineering program.

I would like to get comments from everyone here to regarding the strengths (pros) and weaknesses (cons) of each school so that we can make objective comparisons. We are looking at engineering school ranking, rigor in its program, ties with industry: interns/co-ops, success in graduates in seeking employment, level of starting pay and etc. Also, taking into account that he is accepted into the Honors College at TCNJ and Rowan vs not at NJIT,does that make a difference in the quality of education/training he will be getting. At the end, we would like to be able to help him pick a college that is best suited for him based objective factors and not just based on gut feelings or some feel good factor. We value your opinion and are looking forward to reading your comments, and perhaps there may be some things that we may have overlooked that you may point out.

My son applied to all of these schools and ended up choosing Rowan. He is in the Honors College. If I were you I would go to either TCNJ ot Rowan because he got into the Honors College. Usually they get benefits of being in these programs. M son was nervous about going away to college but the Honors College has made a difference. He has made friends from the honors college. At Rowan, honors students get honors housing, picking of classes before other students, free printing, and honors will go on your transcript when you graduate.

At Rowan my son will graduate with little student debt. That is a plus. You should pick a school you can afford. One that will cost low student debt. Make sure in the financial aid letter that you are not taking out alot of loans every year because costs of college will go up every year.

If they are all ABET accredited, then the engineering curriculum will be very similar.

Engineering is like gravity, always points the same way. The “strength” they refer to in an engineering program is about research. But, that doesnt affect undergrad education really. The questions they want to ask are:

– How big will classes be?

– What is the access to classes, will they be delayed by not being able to get into classes? In the US average engineering degree times are creeping towards 5 years as a result

– Will those classes, especially in the core first 2 years be taught by professors or adjuncts? How good are their profs at teaching (especially if it isnt a core expectation in this era of buying out of teaching) ??

– Both places have excellent job placement and employer reputations in the east and a fair bit beyond so that is IMO, no blood. The real difference, will their child prefer a smaller or larger place??? Suburbs or City?

– Overall, since engineering doesn’t change, where will they get the best educational and teaching opportunity, including pastoral care???

I also think this is between TCNJ and Rowan. NJIT is a seriously bad neighborhood. If you go to Rowan’s engineering page, you can click and find a ton of facts about the engineering program.

Son is a sophomore at Rowan (non-engineering). Housing is awesome. His on campus apartment is nicer than my first house! Next year he’ll be moving off campus and we’ll be saving over $5,000 off the room price; no board needed, just some Rowan bucks. With no scholarship money, our annual cost will be about $15,000/year. If you son has merit money, junior and senior year can be significantly cheaper with off campus housing. And Honors perks are huge at Rowan - he should have no problem getting the courses he wants with priority registration.

TCNJ does have the lower overall admit rate, but I’m not sure what that looks like compared to just Rowan’s engineering. TCNJ just built the new downtown too. I know there’s no shortage of things to do at Rowan - Rowan After Hours, sports clubs, etc…

Rowan Electrical/computer engineering graduates had a $69k average Starting salary Last year. Their newer facilities blow away what they have at NJIT and tcnj is in the process of improving their engineering labs. Rowan engineering is ranked much higher for undergraduate engineering than TCNJ presently on the subjective US news ranking. TCNJ of course is the overall more selective school. Graduates in engineering and computer science from both schools will have the same opportunities upon graduation. As for NJIT you need to be aware that their freshman classes especially are very large. They have a problem with many professors who have difficulty speaking English. There’s also the negative of the Newark campus which simply isn’t as safe or nice as TCNJ and Rowan. Rowan freshman dorm is new and very nice. TCNJ not so much. TCNJ campus is slightly smaller then Rowan although both are easily walkable and safe. For engineering and computer science I would say TCNJ and Rowan are a tossup. I would say your kid should go to the one that feels better to him. If paying for it is an issue go to the one that has a cheaper net price. If they are the same price and you have a concern about your kid not making it in engineering then I would choose TCNJ if you’re worried that he would have to change his major. In terms of overall bang for the buck campus quality and size of classes and quality of education rowan and tcnj engineering are the best bang for the buck instate even ahead of Rutgers, Stevens and NJIT

NJIT. It is closer to the city. TCNJ is too small, though it may have better student body. I know many kids who went both. For CS/engr majors, I believe NJIT is better. Not sure about Rowan.

My D is currently a freshman engineering student in honors. She did not apply to NJIT, and she got a lot higher merit scholarship at Rowan than TCNJ. She was not super invested in her college search and when it came down to it, the decision was really about being able to graduate debt free. Considering she wasn’t super excited starting out at Rowan, she now feels very happy to be there and has had great opportunities in her interests, outside of classes.

The classes at Rowan are small and honors students get to register first. For the first semester, a schedule is made for you, but for the second semester, she got exactly the schedule she wanted. She hasn’t had a professor yet that she has not liked, though some are better than others. What she has found is that the professors really make themselves available to students outside of class. She has been able to develop relationships with professors even though the classes are introductory classes for freshman.

I think the Rowan honors program has more requirements than TCNJ’s, but more perks. When D was accepted to both, I called TCNJ to ask about the honors program and it didn’t seem like a significant part of the college experience like it is at Rowan.

D really loves the other honors students she’s met. The housing is amazing, as are the engineering facilities.

The thing that struck me about Rowan when I was looking at stats during the decision process is that there is a high retention rate in engineering. I would check NJIT on that. I remember reading a comment about NJIT recently that classes are large and engineering students are weeded out. I’m not sure how TCNJ compares.

Just a heads up, my D found the first semester engineering clinic kind of boring, and other parents have told me their kids felt the same. However, I think she can now appreciate the engineering methodology taught through that clinic. She is now very happy in the second semester clinic and this has helped confirm engineering is the right path for her. So if the OP’s S chooses Rowan and is disappointed in the first semester clinic, don’t worry.

TCNJ has the highest engineering and overall retention rate and graduation rate out of Rowan and NJIT. Rowan engineering is now more competitive in terms of stats required than NJIT, TCNJ more competitive than Rowan and NJIT chiefly due to the fact that they have far fewer students than Rowan and NJIT. You can get into NJIT for engineering with less than a 1300 SAT. Much harder to get into Rowan and TCNJ engineering and computer science unless you have a 3.6+ high school gpa and 1300 plus SAT. Area outside of a 2 block radius of NJIT is potentially dangerous especially at night. The on campus crime statistics DO NOT count Newark police statistics for the surrounding area. Bottom line, your kid will be spending ALOT of time in his dorm (the Dorman honors dorm is nice, the regular dorms are terrible.

For computer science and engineering: TCNJ, Rowan, NJIT, Rutgers, Stevens-/- are all good schools. Each one has pros and cons. The point is the cost of attending TCNJ and Rowan combined with their small class sizes, easily walkable campuses, high employment/grad school/ and graduate starting salaries make them an unbeatable value (again I’m talking for ABET accredited computer science and engineering ) if you want your kid in large classes with difficult to understand professors,or you want to ride buses to class, or you want your kid in a high crime area, or you want potentially huge debt and you have money to burn—- by all means send your kid to Rutgers, Stevens or NJIT—- they will do no better than the TCNJ or Rowan computer science or engineering graduate when they graduate

Before picking a college you should attend accepted students day. You should do our research. Your son should pick a school he would feel comfortable with. My son has two friends looking to transfer next year to a different school because they are unhappy. So learning everything you can about the school may prevent this. Now the parents are going to have to pay more money.

I would also suggest that you visit all the campuses on accepted students day. Also, I would suggest checking the website of the EE department at each university to get a sense of the faculty and coursework.

NJIT does use the freshmen classes to weed out weaker students in CS and engineering. But they also have a less selective admissions process.My son is a sophomore CS major at NJIT, and has found the math ,science and CS classes to be reasonable. He has a good group of peers and is involved in a bunch of clubs. I would add that the humanities and English courses were weaker. In that aspect , TCNJ may be better since they admit an overall stronger pool of students.

Njit recently became an R1 institution . That’s the highest level of research classification for a university. Rutgers and Princeton are the only other R1s in the state. May not mean much for an undergrad directly. However , upper level undergrad courses may reflect a wider variety at an R1 than at an undergrad institution. NJIT also produces PhDs who become STEM faculty for the NJ state college system, which includes TCNJ,Montclair etc.

For EE or ECE, it is more about what classes you take than which schools you go, especially at undergrad level and you just want to work after college. When the companies interview you, all those schools make no difference to them.

NJIT is closer to the city so there may be more opportunities to find jobs or internships.

Mr. Njdadjets -" by all means send your kid to Rutgers, Stevens or NJIT—- they will do no better than the TCNJ or Rowan computer science or engineering graduate when they graduate". Apparently, Stevens students do better on the average than TCNJ, Rowan, Rutgers, and NJIT (seventh of all engineering schools in the United States according to Payscale):

https://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report/best-schools-by-type/bachelors/engineering-schools

Additionally, we recently hired three newly minted engineers from Stevens and two from Rutgers. The Stevens grads tell me, and I know this as well having visited there myself, that Hoboken is quite a safe small city. It has become quite gentrified and upscale in the past two or three decades. It is a far cry from Newark or New Brunswick. Hoboken is definitely not a high crime area, it actually has one of highest median incomes in NJ.

OP isn’t admitted to Stevens (and Hoboken is a great city), he’s admitted to NJIT in Newark. As stated earlier, starting salary for a Rowan engineer grad is $69k as of last year.

Although, I take Payscale (and all other commercial rankings) with a grain of salt. They claim for example that early career salaries of US Naval Academy engineering graduates are comparable to the civilian universities in the top 10, but the “early career” of a service academy graduate is that of a junior officer, who makes nowhere near $78K a year. They may actually mean the “early career” after the graduate leaves the service and gets a private industry job, but by then graduates of the civilian universities would have already been in the workforce for 7-10 years or more, and their salaries would more reflect the “mid-career” levels.

To the OP, out of Rowan, TCNJ, and NJIT I would recommend NJIT. While the surrounding city isn’t as good as the others, it is an established research university with a longstanding engineering program that I believe is better known in industry (particularly, those outside the New Jersey area) than the other two.

Look at the “first destination survey” at each of the colleges to see the %of graduates employed and other good info.

You can’t go wrong with any of these colleges.

Thank you everyone who posted here. Really appreciated the comments and advice.

Best of luck with your decision. Please come back and let us know what your son decides. My son is considering NJIT and Rowan for Civil Engineering. We visited both and preferred Rowan in every way but haven’t deleted NJIT yet.

Lol! You’re going by payscale??? The more accurate stats are found in each schools yearly college profile where they must disclose outcomes…an apples to apples comparison of your instate public engineering and computer science programs will show you that graduating from Stevens nets a student no better an average starting salary than any of the state schools

As I understand it both Payscale and the schools’ own outcome surveys get their information from the graduates who answer their polling. I think both are subject to similar biases.