NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ - Middlesex County College is one of 13 community colleges in New Jersey selected to receive funds for providing tuition-free education.

Gov. Phil Murphy on Thursday announced the county colleges selected in what he called the first step toward free community college education.

“Today we are putting the dream of higher education within reach of more students and more families," Murphy said in a statement.

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“Making community college tuition free will help New Jersey’s young people and working adults earn post-secondary degrees to advance their careers, and it will help build the talented workforce that is the engine of our state’s economy,” he said.

Each of the community colleges selected for the program will receive a $250,000 grant for student outreach, recruitment, and support, and to build toward future expansion of their programs.

Colleges selected for the pilot program include institutions from north, central, and southern New Jersey.

Murphy estimated that 13,000 students will be able to qualify to attend one of the selected community colleges free of tuition and educational fees in the spring semester that starts in January 2019.

The students enrolled at least "half-time" will be eligible to receive Community College Opportunity Grants (CCOG), which will cover any remaining costs of tuition and approved educational fees after applying all other financial aid grant awards.





For the spring 2019 pilot, students coming from families with adjusted gross incomes between $0 and $45,000 will be eligible for CCOG awards. Students must maintain satisfactory academic progress at their college to remain eligible for the program.

Current students who have already completed a financial aid application for the fall 2018 semester will be automatically considered for CCOG eligibility if they enroll at one of the 13 selected schools for at least six credits in the spring 2019 semester.

All 19 community college in the applied for the grants. The other schools selected for the program are Atlantic Cape Community College, Bergen Community College, Camden County College, Cumberland County College, and Hudson County Community College.

Also selected were Mercer County Community College, Ocean County College, Passaic County Community College, Rowan College at Gloucester County, Salem Community College, Union County College, and Warren County Community College.