TUITION Rutgers should continue to keep tuition down for the benefit of students see opinions, page 6
Fall cocktails Seasonal fruits and flavors add a festive touch to classic drink recipes
see FOOD & DRINK, page 8
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL Rutgers looks for third straight win to start season
SEE Sports, back
WEATHER Mostly sunny High: 49 Low: 42
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2017
New program generates 300 percent jump in Rutgers applicants Sam Leibowitz-Lord Contributing Writer
Officially launched two years ago, the Coalition for Access, Affordability and Success has resulted in a 300 percent increase in applications to Rutgers, particularly from low-income students. Rutgers University has found itself as a driving force behind the Coalition for Access, Affordability and Success, a college application service that seeks to make the college application process easier and more efficient for high school students, especially those from low-income school districts. The Coalition program was first developed four years ago during a meeting of the Association of American Universities, which Rutgers is a member of, said Courtney McAnuff, vice president for enrollment management at Rutgers. A number of institutions who previously used a similar program called the Common Application found that there were a lot of problems with the ser vice, McAnuff said. “There was also a new study out from Stanford that said low-income students weren’t getting into elite schools because they didn’t know how to apply or that they were eligible for scholarships and financial aid,” McAnuff said. “So we thought, is there a better way for students to apply to top schools?” The Coalition was officially launched two years ago with Rutgers as a founding member. It
Rutgers is part of a select group of universities that replaced the Common Application with a more intuitive process, encouraging more low-income students to apply. DIMITRI RODRIGUEZ / PHOTO EDITOR is maintained by a private firm called CollegeNet, and decisions regarding the Coalition are made by a board composed of representatives from member schools, including McAnuff. Rutgers hosted the board’s annual meeting last year. Annie Reznik, the executive director for the Coalition, said in an email that it currently has 130 member schools and is used by about 40,000 students.
McAnuff said Rutgers received around 800 applications through the program during its first year. This year, that number has increased to 3,500. The Coalition is focused on recruiting students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, McAnuff said. For New Jersey specifically, the Coalition seeks to ensure that all New Jersey students, especially those in urban centers, such as Newark, or those in rural areas like
Warren County have access to the education their state has to offer. McAnuf f also described how the Coalition platform allows students to enter their grades beginning in their first year of high school, as well as upload any videos, documents or other work they would like college admission of ficers to see when they are applying. The purpose of applicants tracking themselves through the Coalition was to give students in low-income or over-extended high schools the ability to know whether they are on track to be admitted to the college of their choice, McAnuff said. “At schools like Princeton and Rutgers, the classes you take freshman year (of high school) can determine your admittance (to college),” McAnuff said. “And at high schools that don’t have great advising, students will take the easier classes, but they don’t know those decisions they make in ninth grade can affect the rest of their lives.” Low-income students and military veterans will have their application fees waived, according to the Coalition website. The Coalition members include public, private and Ivy League institutions to which students can apply through a single application. The Coalition uses data about student academic accomplishments to offer them customized lists of scholarships and financial aid opportunities, McAnuff said. McAnuff also showed posters highlighting the diversity of Coalition
U. responds to 20 percent decrease in NJ DREAMers Samil Tabani Staff Writer
With the renewal deadline for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status already in the rearview mirror, statistics show that fewer residents applied to renew their status this year, though the reason is currently unclear. “New Jersey, given that we have Newark, Camden and Jersey City as ‘sanctuar y cities’ — we’ve been a reasonably good state for undocumented immigrants,” said David Hughes, the vice president of the American Association of University Professors-American Federation of Teachers (AAUP-AFT) at Rutgers University. Hughes said a “sanctuary city” is one which the municipal government only complies with the orders of a judiciary. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer acting on his or her own, will get no
cooperation from the local police or any local authority, unless or until they have an order from the court. Any “sanctuary city” will abide by what comes out of a court or judge, but a sanctuary city will simply not implement or comply with the executive branch by ICE. “We support what’s good for all of our students, and we want all our higher education to be affordable, preferably free for as many people in New Jersey as possible. That population obviously includes people with and without documents, and with and without status,” he said. The AAUP-AFT denounced President Donald J. Trump back in October 2016 because he threatened to deport DACA students and they could not abide by that, Hughes said. Hughes said that in order to deport any Rutgers student the Trump administration will have to go through them. The union will
members and the economic advantages it provides to students. These posters will be displayed in guidance offices and classrooms in high schools across the country. The Coalition has not been without its critics. In an editorial to The New Yorker, journalist Matt Feeney described the Coalition as another component in a overly-complicated, stress-inducing college application process that forces students to conform to what universities decide is desirable instead of being themselves. Feeney writes, “Through its new, considerate, easy-to-use technologies, the Coalition will give kids fuller means, over a fouryear span starting in ninth grade, to mold their teen-age selves according to the implicit and explicit and imagined preferences of, well, the Coalition.” Despite this, the economic benefits of the Coalition’s outreach to low-income students cannot be ignored. For every 200 students admitted to Rutgers through the “Future Scholars Program,” which is linked to the Coalition’s process of tracking high school progress, New Jersey saves around $30 million in student financial aid and public assistance programs, McAnuff said. “Education keeps people off public assistance, such as food stamps or welfare. It is the great leveler,” McAnuff said. “The State University should offer everyone with desire and work ethic the opportunity to come here, not matter where they live.”
Scarlet Knights host 1st ever mock trial invitational Stephen Weiss Associate News Editor
Andujar is a DREAMer and the president of UndocuRutgers on campus. At the time of this event, Sherry Wolf, the senior organizer of the AAUP-AFT, told The Daily Targum that it is the responsibility of the State University of New Jersey to fight injustices to its faculty and student body.
The Rutgers University Mock Trial Association (RUMTA) hosted teams from universities all over the Northeast at last weekend’s “Scarlet Knight Mock Trial Invitational” (SKMTI) tournament held in the Academic Building. The tournament took place on Saturday and Sunday and was the first time RUMTA hosted an event of this kind. There were 26 teams from 16 different universities involved in the tournament, and the first-ever SKMTI Champion was NYU, following the University of Pittsburgh in second place, the University of Maryland in third place, Penn State in fourth place and
See dreamers on Page 4
See invitational on Page 4
After a decline in the number of DREAMers applying to renew their status, the Rutgers faculty union pledged to continue standing behind undocumented students. DIMITRI RODRIGUEZ / PHOTO EDITOR defend any DACA student who finds themselves with a deportation hearing or order. Last semester, the faculty union led hundreds of members of the community to the ICE building in Newark, where they accompanied School of Engineering junior, Carimer Andujar, to a mandator y inter view with a deportation officer.
VOLUME 149, ISSUE 109 • University ... 3 • opinions ... 6 • FOOD & DRINK ... 8 • Diversions ... 9 • SPORTS ... BACK