Any recommendations the new College Affordability Study Commission makes to Gov. Chris Christie won't come in time to help students who arrived on campus this semester.
TRENTON -- At a public hearing at Union County College on Wednesday about college affordability, a panel of New Jersey college presidents and faculty and student representatives will solicit feedback on ideas both radical and pragmatic.
From a "pay it forward" system that initially waives tuition, to a more seamless transition between community college and four-year universities, the goal is to find ways to reduce the financial burden of earning a college degree.
But any recommendations the new College Affordability Study Commission makes to Gov. Chris Christie will come too late to help students who arrived on campus this semester.
Every traditional four-year public and private institution in the state has raised annual tuition and fees for 2015-16, according to an NJ Advance Media survey of two dozen four-year schools.
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Monmouth University had the highest tuition and fee increase among private schools at 4.4 percent. New Jersey City University and Kean University each raised tuition and fees 3 percent, the most among four-year public schools.
Only William Paterson University in Wayne and the College of Saint Elizabeth, a private women's college in Morristown, raised tuition and fees lower than 2 percent.
"We know we are in a hot zone with regard to the idea of 'Can I send my son or daughter to college, and how are we going to pay for it?'" said Fred Keating, president of Rowan College at Gloucester County and chairman of the College Affordability Study Commission.
New Jersey residents are not alone; the rising cost of college in America and crippling student debt has sparked national debate and policy proposals. However, New Jersey has yet make significant progress in curbing costs and remains home to some of the most expensive public schools in the country.
For tuition and fees alone, first-year students attending four-year public college and universities are being charged between $11,258 (New Jersey City University) and $16,108 (New Jersey Institute of Technology) this year. That doesn't include room, board, books, transportation and other fees that raise the total cost of attendance by another $10,000 or more.
At Rutgers University, the state's largest university, students on the main campus in New Brunswick-Piscataway will pay $14,231 in tuition and fees, $318 or 2.3 percent, more than last year. Once room and board are added in, the average student living on the New Brunswick campus will pay $26,185 this year to attend the school.
At New Jersey private schools, the price for first-year students ranges from $27,800 at Bloomfield College to $47,190 at Stevens Institute of Technology, before adding room and board.
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Thomas Edison State College, for-profit colleges and online schools that charge varying rates or do not have traditional semester structures were not included in the survey because their tuition systems make it difficult to compare rates.
Despite the rising tuition rates, New Jersey colleges and universities maintain that they are still a good value.
At the College of New Jersey, where tuition and fees rose 2.9 percent to $15,446, more than 70 percent of students graduate in four years, one of the highest rates in the country, spokesman David Muha said.
"The faster a student is able to earn their degree, the less they will pay in tuition and the sooner they will be able to embark on their career," Muha said.
Some schools attributed tuition increases in part to contractual raises for faculty and said the rising costs are necessary to maintain academic standards.
They also pointed to increases in student aid that aren't reflected in the "sticker prices" for tuition and fees.
As a "high-tuition, high-aid" state, New Jersey colleges charge above-average tuitions, but the state offers financial aid packages to low-income students. Those packages include state Tuition Aid Grants, known as TAG.
New Jersey's neediest students are well-provided for in terms of financial aid, Passaic County Community College President Steven Rose told the affordability commission in May.
But the high-tuition, high-aid model needs to be reviewed because it doesn't help students from middle-class or lower middle-class families, said Rose, also chairman of the New Jersey Presidents' Council, which represents the state's college and university presidents
"There is a huge group of students, and I would argue a growing group of students, that is getting caught in the middle of this, that still cannot afford to go to college and are really being hurt by our high tuitions that we have at our institutions," Rose told the affordability commission.
Addressing the problem is complicated, though, Rose said, and he didn't suggest a way to fix it.
Keating, chairman of the commission, said he agrees that some students are being priced out of college.
"Those are the individuals that are not getting the scholarships, that are not getting the TAG grants and other assistance grants because of their income, and they are not of means where money is no object," he said.
However, suggesting colleges and universities freeze or lower tuition, as some state lawmakers have done, likely isn't the solution, Keating said. He also doesn't believe that calling on the state government to spend another $1 billion on higher education is a realistic recommendation, he said.
Instead, the commission will focus more on the structure of student debt and ways to get students through college more quickly, including taking college credits in their senior year of high school and improving the transfer of credits from community colleges to four-year universities, he said.
"We really feel that we want to keep these committee recommendations to workable, pragmatic thoughts that we can deliver if the economy of New Jersey somewhat improves," Keating said.
The commission's public hearing at Union County College is at 10:30 a.m Wednesday in the Cranford Campus' Roy Smith Theater.
Hearings will also be held Nov. 18 at the College of New Jersey and Jan. 20 at Rowan University.
The commission encourages students, parents, and other members of the public to provide their thoughts and recommendations.
Adam Clark may be reached at adam_clark@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on twitter at @realAdamClark. Find NJ.com on Facebook.