(TRENTON) — Assemblyman Joseph Cryan issued a multimedia package Wednesday in which he discusses the need to keep college tuition in New Jersey affordable for students, following a review by the Assembly Budget Committee of higher education funding in the governor’s proposed budget.
Cryan (D-Union) is a sponsor of a 20-bill higher education reform package that would help reduce the high cost of college in the state.
The multimedia package consists of a video of Cryan’s commentary and audio and a transcript of same.
The video can be accessed directly via our website — www.assemblydems.com — or by clicking here.
The audio file is available upon request.
A transcript of Cryan’s comments is appended below:
Assemblyman Joseph Cryan (D-Union):
“The whole idea here is to provide an affordable, high quality college education for New Jersey students and I think we have lost our way a bit on that path. So today’s discussions will be about student achievement and student outcomes. How do we get graduation rates up? How do we make it so that students don’t graduate in six, eight, nine years, but in four? And as well as how do we make that experience an affordable part of the students’ experience.
“Today, in New Jersey, between the high cost of tuition — in the past five years, tuitions have gone up over 20 percent, on average, around the higher ed publics in the state. Fees have gone up over 20 percent in the last five years in this state. So, our idea is that we look at textbook costs; we look at meal costs; we look at tuition fee freezes, where you pay when you start [the same amount] for nine semesters until you complete — hopefully in nine — allows the student and a family to be able to budget appropriately; the same thing with fees.
“We look at every way we can to reduce the cost to make college not only more affordable, but attainable for New Jersey students.”