NJPIRG In The News

By Reena Diamante

Staff Writer

 

Sen. Robert Menendez celebrates the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act yesterday in front of Brower Commons on the College Avenue campus.

As the first person in his family to go to college and then law school, the challenge many University students face of affording higher education hits home for New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez.

Menendez, D-N.J., said the two factors that contributed to this achievement was his mother, who knew that an education was important to become successful, and student financial aid, including federal Pell Grants and Perkins loans.

With this personal experience on his belt, Menendez and Congressman Frank Pallone, D-N.J, joined supporters on the steps of Brower Commons on the College Avenue campus yesterday in celebration of the new Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act.

“I certainly wouldn’t be standing here as a United States senator without that education,” Sen. Menendez said. “We want that to be a birthright for all our citizens in the days ahead. What we see in each and every one you is the possibility of being the next inventor of the next great idea that will change the world.”

SAFRA, which is part of the health care reform bill, will secure billions of dollars for aid to college students at a time when tuition costs and debts are at its highest.

The new act will inject $36 billion into the Pell Grant program and an additional 11,000 N.J. students will receive the grants, Menendez said. The maximum scholarship a student can be awarded annually will increase to $5,550 this year. By 2017, it will grow to $5,975.

With the scholarship increase, minority-serving institutions and college access grants, N.J. students alone will have access to a quarter of a billion dollars over the next 10 years, he said.

The reform that Menendez and Pallone worked to pass expands the direct student loan program, Menendez said. It removes the huge costs associated with the student loans middlemen, he said.

“It eliminates the subsidies of big banks and private lenders and reinvest these savings into education programs that make college more affordable,” he said.

Not only will the act dramatically raise the amount of money that will go to students, it will reduce the nation’s debt, Menendez said. By reforming the program, the federal deficit will be reduced by $8 billion.

The law is passed at a time when the University needs it the most.

University President Richard L. McCormick said there are difficult choices that need to be made as the state operating support is going down. A reduction of 15 percent is proposed for next year.

“Rutgers is not a rich kid’s school,” he said. “Eighty percent of students are on some kind of financial aid. Thirty percent of them receive federal Pell Grant. About 100 percent work at some point in time to pay their bills.”

Rutgers University Student Assembly President Werner Born, who spoke at the event, expressed gratitude for Sen. Menendez and Congressman Pallone’s work.

“We have been shown that our great nation cares that every student is given an equal opportunity at higher education to pursue studies beyond what is simply written in a text book and discover things in a lab that are still unknown,” said Born, a School of Engineering senior.

Menendez described the rally along with general advocacy for the act as “democracy succeeding.”

“What we celebrate today is not just Congressman Pallone’s or my own ability to make this happen — it’s your ability to participate and make it happen,” he said.

New Jersey Public Interest Research Group member Samuel Obergh, who rallied for the bill on the steps of Capitol Hill alongside Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, yesterday joined his peers on the steps of Brower Commons to further show his support.

“We were bringing more attention to this bill being passed and it was up for a vote,” said Obergh, a School of Arts and Sciences junior.

Among the many student supporters, John Aspray, RUSA Legislative Affairs Committee chair, was thankful for Menendez and Pallone’s efforts.

“The only way I’d be here is through financial aid,” Aspray, a School of Arts and Sciences junior, said. “Students need to be more active in pushing student friendly legislation, since the debt burden is higher for students than it’s even been before.”