I grew up in upstate NY - the real upstate - outside of Albany. When I got accepted to Rutgers and decided to go there, a number of people asked how I got accepted there. They didn’t think I was smart enough. I think at the time out of state students made up less than 5%. It’s 18% now.
Granted this was quite a while ago. I still live in NJ and have been very happy here.
I don’t mind NJ… but the reality is it did come down to money. I don’t think NJ colleges are any better/worse then out of state ones to make it worth me paying more money to go to a NJ school just because its considered “in state”. It’s actually pathetic. Rutgers would have cost mine well over 30k versus all 3 going out of state. Only one of mine applied to Rutgers and they got 5k in merit…by far the least amount she got from all her schools she applied to that year.
If you look at most southern schools, NJ is highly represented. I don’t think thats 100% due to weather either lol
I am surprised by this. We have a kid at Rutgers, and it is just about 30 I think.
Yes. The last time I checked, in-state COA was $29k and that includes room and board.
Read through this past thread for funny “must haves” or lines in the sand : Silliest reasons why your child chose a college to apply to?
However, not all NJ students avoiding NJ publics go to less expensive non-NJ schools. Some pay non-resident prices at other nearby state schools like PSU, UDel, etc.
This is more surprising. I agree. I don’t understand it.
I went to Drew and loved it, and I met lifelong friends there. I don’t think anything in California would be quite like it. Don’t let jersey jokes dissuade you. Towns like Madison are lovely, lots of green,walkable, good pizza, and you can walk to the historic train station and go into NY. Drew had some wonderful traditions, lots of smart people, and the buildings are amazing. OK, this was all a hundred years ago 
but I thought it was great.
The other thing that puzzles me (and I mentioned this above) is a tendency to pay for private schools that aren’t necessarily better than Rutgers. Of course, there are many excellent private schools that are worth paying for, for highly accomplished students who can afford them. But some mistakenly think that any private school is better, and they pay a lot more. In reality, employers view many of those non-elite privates as similarly (or sometimes even less) prestigious than Rutgers.
We just visited, still has all those advantages!
Yup… but with Merit, UDEL was in line with Rutgers for mine. She didn’t end up going. That one went to WCU (PA State School) for about 21k all in after Merit. Another is ended up at SJU (PA Private) for about 16k all in and that includes dorm, meal plan, books and their “misc” expenses listed. My other is at a large SEC school, with merit it was about the same as Rutgers. Travel tips it over but again… mine were very anti going to school in NJ and with that one it didn’t have as much to do with cost.
Rutgets is $30,172 with tuition, room and board and fees. Then I added in books and some other things and yea got us up to about 33k. Again this is IN STATE. Thats insane. I don’t even like the area of New Brunswick to even try and justify that.
My one is ending up in a private. While I agree, it doesn’t make it “better”… private has more money to give (of course some start out much higher so always pay attention to the bottom line). We were also able to work with them on the $ part. Dorm cost were twice as much for some reason. So my daughter wrote them an email and explained that and within 24 hours she received another 5k grant.
I feel the same way as a more left leaning gal from Wisconsin!
I have a Rutgers grad (and I think tuition was a little cheaper than tcnj for #2), #3 went to UD for about the same amount of $ as Rutgers, she really liked the campus much more. She turned down the Rutgers dpt program in Newark too.
Many NJ HS students apparently want to go to colleges where they wouldn’t run into too many of their HS classmates. However, I still don’t understand why they would choose other OOS publics for many of the majors in which Rutgers NB is clearly and significantly better and costs at least no more (even with the “merit” awards calibrated by those other publics to entice NJ students).
In our family, we didn’t draw any line in the sand, including attending an IS public (or geography in general). Rutgers was one of the few public flagships among nearly 30 colleges all over the country we visited a few years ago when my S was looking at the colleges. It was the first college and the only public flagship he actually applied to. It was also his only safety (the other five were all super reaches). He did choose to go to another school (even though Rutgers offered him its Presidential Scholarship, which would roughly mean a 4-year full ride) because of the much better opportunities the other school offered in his case. Had he not received offers from the other schools, he’d be happy to attend Rutgers.
UD was ranked very high on my currents list. I loved their campus!
So back to topic, one of my kids wanted to go to a school where he could ski in the morning and go to the beach in the afternoon.
Our major line in the sand was cost. For a college that required a plane trip, would have needed a very good reason why a closer school did not offer the same opportunities.
My youngest did not want a major party/frat school (turned down Penn State).
Many kids from relatively affluent towns in NJ say they don’t want to go to Rutgers and that will be there line in the sand. However, many of them end up there due to acceptances/finances, have a good experience, and get a great education. It has moved up in the rankings. The only real negative is size and the spread out campus - having to take buses from one part to the other.
We paid more for one of mine to go to a much smaller OOS public which had his desired major. My oldest went to a much smaller private, with merit money that brought the COA in line with Rutgers. Middle kid happily attended Rutgers (and had no loans as a result; the others had the direct student loans only).
Oh one of mine crossed off WVU because on the way there to visit there was “too many hills”