newjerseynewsroom.com

BY BOB HOLT

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Governor Chris Christie signed a higher education reform bill on Wednesday that he said would usher in a new era for Rutgers.

Most notably, the New Jersey Medical and Health Sciences Education Restructering Act gives Rutgers a medical school in New Brunswick and raises Rowan to research university status.

According to the Courier Post, the New Jersey Medical and Health Sciences Education Restructuring Act will transfer all the facilities of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey except its School of Osteopathic Medicine and University Hospital to Rutgers. Rutgers will then become one of the top 25 schools in the nation in terms of grant funding for research. Rowan College of Glassboro will take in UMDNJ’s osteopathic medical campus in Stratford within a year. Rowan’s Cooper Medical School begins in the fall.

Also, Rowan and Rutgers-Camden will be sharing in life sciences education and research. Christie said Rutgers now has "all the things that make a top-flight state university," according to NJBIZ. The school will be gaining medical, dental, nursing, and public health schools.

The governor said feedback from the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries was positive. State Senate President Stephen Sweeney said pushing the legislation forward was difficult, but “it was the right thing to do.”

But NorthJersey.com reports there is no overall cost estimate for the merger, and no funding has been put aside for it in the state budget. When most of the UMDNJ integrates into Rutgers by July of next year, it will create an annual budget of almost $3.7 billion. Rutgers will also be assuming the UMDNJ’s debt of more than $600 million.

Students feared that their tuition would rise substantially, while nurses in Newark were concerned that the deal only guaranteed their jobs for a year, according to CBS News.