The Stockton Promise grant provides full tuition to incoming students whose parents make $65k or less via State mandate. This is important: neutral data compiler and research department Statista found that, in a 2021 survey, the average cost of living is $63,036 - just under the benchmark. To be middle-class in New Jersey is even more expensive: between $60,000 and $177,000. Furthermore, this policy puts Stockton on par other schools such as Rutgers and NJCU, who began similar programs years ago.

However, the limitation to current students limits the pupils who are also suffering and were inadequately funded the past few years. It neglects the students whose funds drive such universities and overlook those who CHOSE them above other schools. It does a disservice to students who invest all of their energy into maintaining academic and extracurricular rigor to earn scholarships, work full-time to support their attendance, or even both by putting them tens of thousands of dollars in debt. 

Offering full tuition and fee remission to only new Stockton University students  severely hampers their success. It sets them thousands of dollars behind due to a lack of prior support; in fact,

• First-year students were NOT guaranteed merit-based aid outside of their SAT scores (despite being a test-optional school);
• First-year students CANNOT apply for Foundation scholarships until their second semester; even worse, Fall 2020 students are impacted by the COVID-driven influx in applications and HIP access inequality;
• Transfer students are NOT offered aid on all standards outside of a small grant reserved upon evaluation;
• Transfer students are DENIED access to Stockton Foundation scholarships the first year of their enrollment.

While grants (including FWS), loans, and other scholarships exist, they do not heal the deficits presented by the exclusion. A student who must work loses their ability to engage in extracurricular and professional opportunities, network, or serve other components of their education. Of course, loans do not remove debt nor change the ten-thousand-dollar deficits. Further, relying on scholarships presents issues with qualification biases and awkward requirements (either financial or personal). Even emergency grants were not clear on the span of students they can help, presenting yet another reason to compensate.

Stockton University has a responsibility to attend to the financial, mental, and even physical health of their current students, especially with the worldwide pandemic. We have had our college firsts dashed, critical experiences and networking for future success disrupted, and quality of teaching greatly disturbed. 

Indeed, Stockton University already lags years behind other colleges, who have filled 100% of the aid gap for those with low incomes for several years already while they raise their tuitions by 2% each year. In fact, with a loan-to-grant ratio of 87 to 13, Stockton has continually failed to meet the needs of their students. It is only right for the University to assist its current students who need them the most at this time and shift towards offering greater grant availability/ more diverse financial support types for those of the future.

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If this does not change, nearly 10,000 students will be thousands of dollars behind, many of those being the very students Stockton University has a responsibility to serve.