Rutgers University

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, commonly referred to as Rutgers University or simply Rutgers ( RUT-gərz), is a large public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College and was affiliated with the Dutch Reformed Church. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States, the second-oldest in New Jersey (after Princeton University), and one of nine colonial colleges that were chartered before the American Revolution.

In 1825, Queen's College was renamed Rutgers College in honor of Colonel Henry Rutgers, whose substantial gift to the school had stabilized its finances during a period of uncertainty. From its founding to the mid-20th century, Rutgers was a private liberal arts college. It has evolved into a major public research university since being designated the State University of New Jersey by the state's legislature in 1945 and 1956.

Rutgers encompasses several distinct campuses. Since colonial times, Rutgers' historic core has been located along College Avenue at the College Avenue Campus in New Brunswick, New Jersey, as part of Rutgers University–New Brunswick. Rutgers–New Brunswick includes the Douglass and Cook campuses, both primarily in the city of New Brunswick, as well as both the Busch and Livingston campuses on the north side of the Raritan River in Piscataway. Rutgers also makes use of many buildings throughout downtown New Brunswick. Two other major campuses are located at Rutgers University–Newark, and Rutgers University–Camden. The university has additional facilities located throughout the state, including oceanographic research facilities at the Jersey Shore.

Rutgers is a land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant university, as well as the largest university in the state. Instruction is offered by more than 9,930 faculty members in 175 academic departments to over 51,400 undergraduate students and more than 19,400 graduate students. As of Fall 2026, Rutgers University enrolls over 71,000 students across its three campuses, making it one of the largest universities in the United States. The university is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and is a member of the Association of American Universities and the Universities Research Association.

History

18th century

Two decades after the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University, was established in 1746 by the New Light Presbyterians, ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church, seeking autonomy in ecclesiastical affairs in the Thirteen Colonies, sought to establish a college to train those who wanted to become ministers within the Dutch Reformed Church in the colony. This religious organization developed into the Reformed Church in America.

Through several years of effort by Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen (1691–1747) and Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh (1736–1790), later the college's first president, Queen's College received its charter on November 10, 1766, from New Jersey's last royal governor, William Franklin (1730–1813), the son of Benjamin Franklin. The original charter established the college under the corporate name the trustees of Queen's College, in New-Jersey, named in honor of Queen Charlotte (1744–1818), and created both the college and the Queen's College Grammar School, intended to be a preparatory school affiliated and governed by the college. The Grammar School, today the private Rutgers Preparatory School, was a part of the college community until 1959. New Brunswick was chosen as the location over Hackensack because the New Brunswick Dutch had the support of the Anglican population, making the royal charter easier to obtain.

The original purpose of Queen's College was to "educate the youth in language, liberal, the divinity, and useful arts and sciences" and for the training of future ministers for the Dutch Reformed Church.

In 1771, the college admitted its first students, which included a single sophomore and a handful of first-year students taught by a lone instructor, and granted its first degree in 1774, to Matthew Leydt. Despite the religious nature of the early college, the first classes were held at a tavern called the Sign of the Red Lion. When the Revolutionary War broke out and taverns were suspected by the British as being hotbeds of rebel activity, the college abandoned the tavern and held classes in private homes.

Like many colleges founded in the U.S. during this time, Rutgers benefited from slave labor and funds derived from purchasing and selling enslaved people. Research undertaken at the university in the 2010s began to uncover and document these connections, including the university's foundation on land taken from the indigenous Lenape people.

19th century

In its early years, due to a lack of funds, Queen's College was closed for two extended periods. Early trustees considered merging the college with the College of New Jersey, in Princeton, but the measure failed by one vote. They later considered relocating it to New York City. In 1808, after raising $12,000, the college temporarily reopened and broke ground on a building of its own, called "Old Queens", designed by architect John McComb Jr. The college's third president, Ira Condict, laid the cornerstone on April 27, 1809. Shortly after, the New Brunswick Theological Seminary, founded in 1784, relocated from Brooklyn, to New Brunswick, and shared facilities with Queen's College and the Queen's College Grammar School, and all three institutions were then overseen by the Reformed Church in America. During those formative years, all three institutions fit into Old Queens. In 1830, Queen's College Grammar School moved across the street, and in 1856, the seminary relocated to a seven-acre (28,000 m2) tract less than one-half mile (800 m) away.

Organization and administration

University president

Since 1785, twenty-two men have served as the institution's president, beginning with Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh, a Dutch Reformed minister who was responsible for establishing the college. Before 1930, most of the university's presidents were clergy affiliated with Christian denominations in the Reformed tradition. Two presidents were alumni of Rutgers College—William H. S. Demarest (Class of 1883) and Philip Milledoler Brett (Class of 1892).

The president serves in an ex officio capacity as a presiding officer within the university's 59-member board of trustees and its eleven-member board of governors, and is appointed by these boards to oversee the day-to-day operations of the university across its campuses. He is charged with implementing "board policies with the help and advice of senior administrators and other members of the university community." The president is responsible only to those two governing boards—there is no oversight by state officials.

The current president is William F. Tate IV, who assumed the role on July 1, 2025. He succeeded the 21st president Jonathan Holloway who assumed office on July 1, 2020.

Governing boards

Governance at Rutgers University rests with a board of trustees consisting of 41 members, and a board of governors consisting of 15 voting members: eight are appointed by the governor of New Jersey and seven chosen by and from among the board of trustees. The trustees constitute chiefly an advisory body to the board of governors and are the fiduciary overseers of the property and assets of the university that existed before the institution became the State University of New Jersey in 1945. The initial reluctance of the trustees (still acting as a private corporate body) to cede control of certain business affairs to the state government for direction and oversight caused the state to establish the Board of governors in 1956. Today, the board of governors maintains much of the corporate control of the university.

The members of the board of trustees are voted upon by different constituencies or appointed. "Two faculty and two students are elected by the University Senate as nonvoting representatives. The 59 voting members are chosen in the following way as mandated by state law: 20 charter members (of whom at least three shall be women), 16 alumni members nominated by the nominating committee of the board of trustees, and five public members appointed by the governor of the state with confirmation by the New Jersey Senate.

Affiliations

Association of American Universities

Locations and divisions

Rutgers University has three campuses in New Jersey. The New Brunswick Campus, located in New Brunswick and adjacent Piscataway, is the largest campus of the university. The Newark Campus in Newark and the Camden Campus in Camden are located in the northern and southern parts of the state, respectively. Combined, these campuses comprise 33 degree-granting schools and colleges, offering undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels of study. The university is centrally administered from New Brunswick, although chancellors at the Newark and Camden campuses hold significant autonomy for some academic issues.

Rutgers–New Brunswick

The New Brunswick Campus (or Rutgers–New Brunswick) is the largest campus and the site of the original Rutgers College. Spread across six municipalities in Middlesex County, New Jersey, it lies chiefly in the City of New Brunswick and adjacent Piscataway and is composed of five smaller campuses and a few buildings in downtown New Brunswick. The historic College Avenue Campus is close to downtown New Brunswick and includes the seat of the university, Old Queens and other nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century buildings that constitute the Queens Campus and Voorhees Mall. Its proximity to New Brunswick's train station and numerous food vendors located downtown, in addition to a large amount of off-campus housing and fraternity and sorority houses, make this a popular weekend destination.

Across the city, Douglass Campus and Cook Campus are intertwined and often referred to as the Cook/Douglass Campus. Cook Campus has extensive farms and woods that reach North Brunswick and East Brunswick. Separated by the Raritan River is Busch Campus, in Piscataway, and Livingston Campus, also mainly in Piscataway but including remote sections of land extending into Edison and Highland Park. The Busch Campus is noted as the home of Rutgers' highly ranked Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, as well as the golf course and football stadium. The Livingston campus is home to Jersey Mike's Arena (formerly the Rutgers Athletic Center [RAC]), a trapezoidal building that is home to many sports teams, notably the men's basketball team. Additionally, this campus has undergone many renovations and is regarded as the most "modern" campus. The campus entrance is delineated by the all-glass Rutgers Business School building known as "100 Rock" (because of the building's Piscataway address, 100 Rockafeller Road). Rutgers Campus Buses transport students between the various campuses.

As of 2010, the New Brunswick-Piscataway campuses include 19 undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools, including the School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Communication and Information, the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, the School of Engineering, the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, the Graduate School, the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology, the Graduate School of Education, the School of Management and Labor Relations, Mason Gross School of the Arts, the College of Nursing, the Rutgers Business School and the School of Social Work. As of 2012, 40,434 students (31,593 undergraduates and 8,841 graduate students) were enrolled at the New Brunswick-Piscataway campus. The New Brunswick-Piscataway campus includes a Business School building on the Livingston Campus.

Academics

The university offers more than 100 distinct bachelor, 100 masters, and 80 doctoral and professional degree programs across 175 academic departments, 29 degree-granting schools, and colleges, 16 of which offer graduate programs of study.

It is accredited by the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools (1921), and in 1989, became a member of the Association of American Universities, an organization of the 62 leading research universities in North America. Rutgers–New Brunswick is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". Rutgers–Newark and Rutgers–Camden are classified by the same organization as "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".

Undergraduate

U.S. News & World Report considers the New Brunswick campus of Rutgers University to be a "more selective" school in terms of the rigor of its admissions processes. For the Class of 2025 (enrolling fall 2021), the New Brunswick campus received 43,161 applications and accepted 29,419 (68.2%). The number enrolling was 7,105; the yield rate (the percentage of accepted students who enroll) was 24.2%. The freshman retention rate is 94%, with 83.8% going on to graduate within six years. Rutgers is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity," reflecting its extensive research output and doctoral programs.

Of the 45% of the incoming freshman class who submitted SAT scores; the middle 50 percent Composite scores were 1240-1470. Of the 7% of enrolled freshmen in 2021 who submitted ACT scores; the middle 50 percent Composite score was between 27 and 33.

Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey is a college-sponsor of the National Merit Scholarship Program and sponsored 21 Merit Scholarship awards in 2020. In the 2020–2021 academic year, 29 freshman students were National Merit Scholars.

Financial aid

As a state university, Rutgers charges two separate rates for tuition and fees, depending on an enrolled student's residency. The Office of Institutional Research and Academic Planning estimates that the cost of in-state students of attending Rutgers would amount to $25,566 for an undergraduate living on campus and $30,069 for a graduate student. For an out-of-state student, the costs rise to $38,228 and $39,069 respectively. As of the 2024–2025 academic school year, the estimated cost of tuition for in-state students was $14,222, $33,734 for out-of-state students, and $15,332 for room and board.

In the 2010–2011 academic year, undergraduate students at Rutgers, through a combination of federal (53.5%), state (23.6%), university (18.1%), and private (4.8%) scholarships, loans, and grants, received $492,260,845 of financial aid. 81.4% of all undergraduates, or 34,473 students, received some form of financial aid. During the same period, graduate students, through a combination of federal (61.9%), state (1.8%), university (34.5%), and private (1.9%) scholarships, loans, and grants received $182,384,256 of financial aid. 81.5% of all graduate students, or 11,852 students received some form of financial aid.

Research

Rutgers is home to the Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science, also known as RUCCS. This research center hosts researchers in psychology, linguistics, computer science, philosophy, electrical engineering, and anthropology.

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