As many as 17,000 low-income college students each year use New Jersey’s summer financial aid program to catch up on their academic course load. Next year, they may not have the option.
Summer Tuition Aid Grants, or Summer TAG, are in danger as Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s $60.7 billion proposed spending plan slashes millions of dollars in college operating aid and student assistance. Reductions are possible across state government to narrow an estimated $3 billion structural budget gap.
As federal student aid programs tighten eligibility rules, college and legislative leaders say eliminating the summer program would be devastating to students.
“You know what happens when we don’t have Summer TAG? Life starts happening, and they don’t all find their way back,” Anthony Iacono, president of the County College of Morris, said to lawmakers last week at a Senate budget hearing in Trenton. The result can have a negative lifetime impact, he said.
“They don’t have a trade. They don’t have a college education. They lock into a skill of low-income labor that’s not benefiting them and it’s not benefiting us by any stretch whatsoever,” Iacono said.
He and other college leaders at that hearing made their case to lawmakers for reinstating aid to summer TAG and minimizing other proposed cuts as the Legislature and governor’s office negotiate the 2027 budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1.
Graduating — or not
Funded at $21 million this fiscal year, Summer TAG is available to students who are enrolled with at least six credits and received a full-time Tuition Aid Grant during the previous fall or spring semester.
“The establishment of this program was one of the major economic and educational affordability accomplishments of the past few years,” said Michael J. Avaltroni, president of Fairleigh Dickinson University.
For many students, the option to take summer courses is “oftentimes the difference between being able to graduate or walking away” because they lose momentum, Avaltroni said. Less funding “compromises completion rates,” he added.
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle agreed the loss of this grant could be detrimental for many students, accoringg to Sen. Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth). “It seems foolish to cut it,” O’Scanlon said.
Other financial aid programs that would be chopped entirely include $3.5 million for student teacher stipends and $600,000 for tuition assistance for Thomas Edison University students.
The Community College Opportunity Grant, created under Sherrill’s predecessor Phil Murphy, would get $24.5 million, a 25% reduction in funding. That program kicks in after all other grants and scholarships have been applied, creating an easier reach to an associate’s degree for low-income students.
“I’m deeply disturbed by some federal decisions that are going to throttle back financial aid,” said Montclair State University President Jonathan Koppell, noting tighter Pell Grant eligibility requirements under President Donald Trump. “We need to be careful that we’re not amplifying that crisis.”
State financial aid programs fall under the jurisdiction of the Higher Education Student Assistance Authority. Its acting executive director, Jerry Traino, said his “core mission” was to protect the authority’s three flagship aid programs: the Tuition Aid Grant and county programs and the Garden State Guarantee, which reduces tuition costs for third- and fourth-year students.
The budget proposes $517 million, or a 2.3% increase, in funding for Tuition Aid Grants, the state’s largest needs-based aid program for students in all undergraduate programs, including those at private schools like Fairleigh Dickinson and Drew universities.
TAG awards vary based on need and tuition costs. In the current fiscal year, the state distributed nearly 66,000 awards.
‘Very fragile shape’
As health insurance and energy costs rise, the reductions in state aid for colleges could mean higher tuition rates and possible cuts to staff or programs. “Schools are in very fragile shape,” Iacono said.
The state’s 13 public universities next year would receive $952 million in operating aid, for a $132 million cut from the current year. The 18 county colleges would get $280.5 million, for $5.1 million more. Independent colleges would be hit with a nearly 80% reduction, to $4.7 million from $21.3 million.
“We recognize the fiscal discipline this moment demands of our institutions and do not take these decisions lightly,” acting Higher Education Commissioner Margo Chaly said at the hearing.
Chaly said the higher education office would prioritize meeting with college leaders over the next year to create an aid formula that would support more predictability in year-to-year funding.
For now, it’s likely students will see a tuition hike as college governing boards prepare to make those proposals in weeks ahead.
Tuition increases of even a few hundred dollars per semester “could be a make-or break-change” for some students, Koppell said. To help some struggling students, he said, Montclair State has expanded its campus food pantry in recent years.
