Bill > S1364

Introduced Session

According to a December 2010 report of the Education Trust, only one in five students who enrolls in a proprietary school graduates within six years and these students are likely to assume greater levels of student loan debt than students at public and independent colleges. The study reported that the median debt load for graduates at proprietary schools is $31,190, nearly twice the amount for graduates of independent colleges and four times the amount for graduates of public colleges. This bill prohibits proprietary schools from receiving direct State aid. The bill further provides that a student enrolled in a proprietary school will not be eligible to receive any form of student assistance from the State unless the school meets a specified graduation rate to be determined by the Secretary of Higher Education. The bill also included proprietary schools authorized to grant academic degrees within the "New Jersey College Student and Parent Consumer Information Act." Specifically, the bill provides that each such proprietary school will have to annually disclose on its website various measures of student graduation rates, school costs, and student loan indebtedness, among other indicators of school quality. The bill also directs the Secretary of Higher Education to include the student consumer information reports submitted by proprietary schools within a comparative profile that it already prepares of four-year public institutions of higher education.

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Shirley Turner (D)*, 

Introduced in the Senate, Referred to Senate Higher Education Committee (on 02/10/2020)