Rutgers-Newark used its annual homecoming week celebration to do more than just welcome back alumni. It announced a fund that it feels will help more of the current students join that group.
On Friday night at STAR Night at Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hall, Rutgers University–Newark Chancellor Tonya Smith-Jackson officially launched STAR Fund, a new initiative whose aim is to cover the unexpected emergency costs that can push students out of school.
The fund-raising gala was part of a homecoming week marking the school’s 80th year in Newark.
Chancellor Tonya Smith-Jackson summed up the STAR Fund (short for Student Achievement and Resilience) like this: It’s a way to adding slack to the system.
Students with savings or family support can absorb a surprise bill. Smith-Jackson said many of hers can’t. They’re mostly first-generation and
Approximately 59% of undergraduates at Rutgers–Newark are federal Pell Grant-eligible, meaning that their budgets are often stretched so tight that one disruption can end a semester, or a degree.
University data underscores the scale of the challenge. More than 1,500 currently enrolled Rutgers–Newark students carry outstanding balances, averaging $2,738 each. Collectively, those balances represent an estimated $4.25 million gap that can stand between students and continued enrollment.
The fund is meant to cover those moments.
“Star Fund is all about providing more space, providing more slack in the system, so that if there is a disruption, we can intervene,” she said. “Take care of that one situation, and they can keep moving.”
Smith-Jackson knows the problem firsthand.
“I’m first gen,” she said. “I was low income as well.”
BINJE talked with Smith-Jackson about the STAR fund. Here’s more of the conversation, edited for length and clarity.
BINJE: Who are your students, and why do they need a fund like this?
Tonya Smith-Jackson: We’re all about access, all about opportunity. It’s that in-between where students may struggle. We’re mostly first-gen students. We’re mostly Pell, low income, and so we need points in time where we’re able to have a fund to support our students when life circumstances might very well get in the way of their academic journey.
BINJE: Scholarships and aid cover tuition. They don’t cover the flat tire on the second Tuesday in October. Do people understand that need?
TSJ: That is exactly right. Some people have a lot of slack in their system. They’ve got some capacity; they have some reserves. Something can happen, and they can overcome it with whatever finances they have. But some of us don’t. For some students, everything is like a tight rubber band, and you have to coordinate your day, your dollars, your nickels or whatever and everything has to work.
When there’s a disruption … a car repair, the babysitter quits, someone in your family has a health issue … it’s a big challenge. Many of our students don’t have the reserves to be able to take care of, because they’re walking a tightrope every single day. It only leads to dropping out of school.
BINJE: And once a student steps away, getting them back is harder than getting them started.
TSJ: It surely is. When people have that momentum going, they might be walking a tightrope, but every day, every minute, every step, they’re getting it done. If they do have to make that hard decision of stepping away for a while, life gets real complicated. They might pick up another part-time job to figure out a way to buy a car so they can come back. But other life circumstances will also pile up during that time. It is hard for them to get back. They’ll lose that momentum, and the complexities of life will interrupt.
I believe it’s certainly much more optimal financially for us to interject and keep them on the path than it is for us to let them stop out or drop out and then try to bring them all the way back.
BINJE: Newark has a reputation for taking care of its own. When you ask for help, do people say, “What do you need?”
TSJ: You got that right. I’m telling you, this is a loving community. We’re in Newark. We’re of Newark. We have the trust of Newark and the state of New Jersey because of what we are doing and the accomplishments we’ve had in social mobility and in providing access and opportunity. We even have a deep bench, because people really care, and they know that Rutgers-Newark is going to return on the investment.
There’s a whole lot of compassion, but at the same time, I think there are a whole lot of people out there who are doing the math. They’re saying: This few dollars I’m going to put in to keep this person on the journey is going to have a promise of a return later on for our state.
BINJE: Homecoming is back after about a decade off. For a first-gen student, seeing a 25-year-old or a 55-year-old alum shows what a degree means in a way that just telling them to graduate can’t. How important is that?
TSJ: It’s everything. When students have the opportunity to hear that others also struggled as they went from coming into this university to complete their degree, and how they overcame, it’s powerful.
If we get our students — the majority are first gen — in the room at the same time with these alumni who graduated and carried on with their careers and have had a lot of career success, the alumni can share the things that helped them to get through and also make sure that the students understand that they can do it. It can be done.
We can connect with students about struggles. But when we connect on the overcoming obstacles part — What was done? What did you do? Who helped you at the time so that you could overcome whatever those barriers were and get to the finish line? — we’ve really connected.
