NJSTARS will likely face change

Two popular scholarship programs that give top students free tuition survived the state's budget battle but will likely face changes that could alter student eligibility.

A new committee being formed will consider making it harder for students to get in.

Up for review are the New Jersey Student Tuition Assistance Reward Scholarship Programs, better known as NJSTARS and NJSTARS II.

Gov. Corzine wanted to put a $100,000 family-income limit on the programs, a $2.5 million budget cut the programs are expected to be spared.

Students and other program supporters were quick to point out that, given the state's cost of living and the price of college, $100,000 does not constitute great wealth, especially in families with more than one college-bound child. Of the 658 students projected to start with NJSTARS this fall, 39 percent would have exceeded the $100,000 limit, according to the state Higher Education Student Assistance Authority.

Nevertheless, critics of the programs - and even some of its supporters - say both NJSTARS need revision beyond a simple income cap.

In some ways, the NJSTARS are the victims of their own success, or, at least, their popularity.

NJSTARS was started in 2004 as an attempt to cut the flow of high school graduates out of the state. Launched with just a little more than 930 students, NJSTARS promised free community college tuition for students who graduate in the top 20 percent of their class. NJSTARS II came along two years later, offering NJSTARS students with a 3.0 grade-point average free tuition at one of the state's four-year schools. They must maintain that average to stay in the program.

In four years, the two programs have ballooned to a budget of more than $13 million for about 4,800 students.

John Neckonchuk, 19, and his twin sister, Jenna, of Stratford, are two of them. Although the cap would not have affected them, he defended the program for others.

"This is a great program. It's a light at the end of the tunnel," said Neckonchuk, who earned a 4.0 GPA each semester this year at Camden County College. He hopes to make it into STARS II and, later, law school.

He works as a supermarket stock boy, his father is an operator for Sunoco, and his mother is a delicatessen clerk. Another sister is also in college. Their family income would have been over the $100,000 proposed cap.

Bright, motivated students such as Neckonchuk have been a boon to community colleges, increasing their profile and prestige.

"The students now, they don't say, 'Oh, I went to community college.' They're saying, 'I'm a New Jersey Star,' " said Jacob Farbman, spokesman for the New Jersey Council of County Colleges.

New Jersey is one of a handful of states offering merit-based scholarships for community college students, and more states are looking into it, Farbman said.

That said, not all NJSTARS students are all-stars. About 30 percent of the program's students require remedial education. That means that students are finishing high school in the top fifth of their class but lacking basic skills for college.

Though that is lower than the 70 percent of all New Jersey community college students who require at least one remedial course, that so many NJSTARS students need remedial help concerns supporters and critics.

One reason that students graduating in their schools' top 20 percent still need help is that not all school districts are academically equal. A student who makes the top 20 percent in a high-performing school may have received a different education than a student in a struggling school. Though the state is working to unify its high school curriculum and make it more rigorous, the courses required for graduation vary among schools.

Another explanation may be students who aim their high school studies at getting a scholarship. Farbman said he had heard of parents instructing their children not to take Advanced Placement or other challenging courses that might yield a lower grade and keep them out of the top 20 percent.

"That dilutes the whole program," Farbman said.

Jane Oates, executive director of the state Commission on Higher Education and a Corzine policy adviser, agreed.

There is concern that the scholarship may act as an incentive for students to take less-rigorous courses, said Oates, who is organizing the committee that will likely recommend changes in NJSTARS.

Requiring certain courses for admission into NJSTARS may be one of those changes, Oates said.

The committee will also look into the state four-year colleges' concerns about the financial burden that they say is put on their institutions by NJSTARS II, as well as issues of fairness.

The $4,100 annual NJSTARS II scholarship covers less than half the tuition at the state's four-year schools. Harvey Kesselman, a dean at Richard Stockton College and a member of the state student assistance authority's board, said NJSTARS II would cost Stockton about $1 million next year.

"That's a lot of money when the appropriation to higher education has been cut," he said. "It's an unfunded mandate."

Officials say some higher-performing, lower-income students get less aid than some NJSTARS students.

Rutgers' top 20 percent average 1,381 on their SATs and may get $961 a year in state merit aid. The NJSTARS II students average 1,081 and receive nearly $11,000 worth of free tuition a year, said Courtney McAnuff, Rutgers' vice president for enrollment management.

"There should be some measure of need because it's really unfair to economically needy students who get no aid," he added.

Yet, for all the concerns, at a time when college costs can be staggering and young people can be looking at huge debt, NJSTARS has benefited many deserving students.

Chanelle D. Robinson, 22, of Camden, says she has worked hard for her scholarship. She finished fourth in her class at Camden County Technical High School. That got her into NJSTARS. Keeping her average at 3.0 or better got her into NJSTARS II.

The daughter of a single parent - her mother is a nurse - she said she teared up when she found out how little aid she had coming before she looked into NJSTARS.

"If STARS had not existed, I would have been up to my knees in thousands and thousands of dollars in debt," she said.

A Rowan University student, she says she is looking forward to finishing college and beginning a teaching career, possibly in the Camden schools. She keeps on her sisters, ages 13 and 15, about their grades. If they keep them up, she tells them, they may get into NJSTARS.