Let me tell you about a university that’s making waves—not for its research breakthroughs or campus culture, but for its audacious decision to simultaneously raise tuition and restrict academic freedom. New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) has become the latest battleground in a growing war between institutions of higher learning and the students they claim to serve. The move? A 6% tuition hike paired with a drastic reduction in the number of classes students can take per semester. It’s a decision that feels less like a strategic pivot and more like a calculated gamble on the backs of young people already drowning in student debt.
What’s particularly fascinating here is how NJIT’s leadership framed this as a necessary evil. In a campus-wide email, interim president John Pelesko claimed the changes would ‘keep an NJIT degree within reach’ while ‘protecting what matters most in your education.’ But let’s dissect that. When a university raises costs while limiting access to its own resources, it’s not protecting education—it’s redefining it. If students can’t take 19 credits without paying extra, how does that align with the idea of ‘access’? It’s like telling someone, ‘Here’s the key to the castle, but you’ll have to pay extra to climb the stairs.’
The timing of this decision is especially galling. Students had already mapped out their academic schedules for the fall semester when the policy change was announced—after they’d registered, after they’d planned their budgets, after they’d possibly taken out loans. This isn’t just bureaucratic negligence; it’s a slap in the face to a generation that’s been told for decades that education is a pathway to the American dream. Now, that dream feels like a maze with tollbooths at every turn. What many people don’t realize is that this isn’t an isolated incident. Across the country, universities are increasingly treating students as consumers rather than stakeholders, prioritizing institutional survival over student well-being.
The financial optics are also troubling. NJIT’s tuition hike mirrors a national trend where public universities are shifting costs onto students while shrinking state funding. But here’s the kicker: the university is simultaneously claiming it’s under financial strain. If that’s the case, why not explore alternatives like freezing tuition or increasing scholarships instead of burdening students further? The answer, of course, lies in the broader political and economic landscape. Universities are caught in a Catch-22 where they need more money but can’t raise taxes, so they default to the easiest target: the students themselves.
Let’s talk about the credit cap. Limiting full-time students to 17 credits per semester unless they pay extra is a masterclass in creative accounting. It’s not just about money—it’s about control. By forcing students into a rigid credit structure, NJIT is effectively dictating the pace of their education. For those relying on 18–19 credit semesters to graduate on time, this policy could delay degrees, disrupt career plans, and even push some into part-time status. What this really suggests is that universities are becoming more like corporations, optimizing for efficiency and revenue streams over academic flexibility.
The irony isn’t lost on me. Just weeks before this announcement, NJIT was praised in Money’s Best Colleges ranking for its value proposition. Yet here it is, undermining that very value by making education more expensive and less accessible. It’s a reminder that rankings often prioritize marketing over substance. Students might be getting a ‘good deal’ on paper, but in practice, they’re being sold a product that’s increasingly out of reach. A detail I find especially interesting is that the university’s most privileged students—those in accelerated programs or with full scholarships—are exempt from these changes. This isn’t just a policy; it’s a hierarchy. The elite get to keep their perks, while the rest are left to navigate a system designed to keep them dependent.
If you take a step back and think about it, this isn’t just about NJIT. It’s about the entire higher education ecosystem. We’ve normalized the idea that students should bear the brunt of systemic failures. From rising tuition to crushing debt, the message is clear: education is a privilege, not a right. But what happens when that privilege becomes a luxury item? The answer is already emerging in the form of protests, petitions, and a growing disillusionment among students. This isn’t just a fight over credits and fees—it’s a fight over the soul of higher education. And if we don’t challenge these trends now, we risk turning universities into the very institutions they were meant to liberate us from.
