By Briana Vannozzi
Correspondent
It’s the chance to go to college tuition-free. And for many students in this Union County district, it could be the only chance to go to college.
“I would like to go to college but my mom has like a lot of kids. So it would be difficult for her to pay for all of us,” said seventh-grader Alexander Argueta.
Thanks to a $1.7 million donation from P. Roy Vagelos, Class of ’47 alum, about 90 Rahway students will have the opportunity to participate in the Rutgers Future Scholars program. The scholarship picks up the tab for tuition and fees at the university, which run about $55,000 for a four-year education.
“The students will be selected first from a group of students who come from low income families and in Rahway that’s about two-thirds of our students,” said Superintendent Dr. Patricia Camp.
They also have to be the first in their families to go to college. In the coming weeks, Rahway public schools will select 15 seventh-graders to join, something they’ll continue to do annually for the next six years.
“This could be a game changer in the fact that this will shift or change the trajectory of that youngster’s future,” said Alan Johnson, principal at Rahway 7th and 8th Grade Academy.
“As the high school principal, I will see the benefits of kids knowing and understanding more about college at an earlier age, which not only helps the high school, but it helps the whole district,” said Rahway High School Principal John Farinella.
“I had wonderful teachers at Rahway High School who helped me to reach for the top by working harder,” Vagelos said.
The former Merck CEO said in a statement.
Students will receive mentoring, extra field trips and intense tutoring programs. As along as they stick with it for the six years and gain admission to Rutgers, they’re in.
Rutgers started the program about eight years ago, when they noticed disadvantaged students from surrounding neighborhoods weren’t attending.
“A lot of times when students come from low income backgrounds they just don’t even think about college because it just seems to be so far beyond them, and again if you don’t have a parent who’s has graduated from college, you don’t have anyone at home to help explain to you the process,” Camp said.
“It’d probably mean that someone in the family would get a chance to experience it because I don’t know if my aunts or uncles have gone to college either. So it’d be nice for someone in the family to be able to go to college,” said seventh-grader Je-Naya Shipley.
And though the school can’t predict where the students will land, their opportunities just got a whole lot brighter.