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Results made public day after state chance for $400 million in federal funds

BY TOM HESTER SR.

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

The majority of New Jersey parents of high school students believe the state government's top budget priorities should be funding for K-12 education and higher education with healthcare a distant third, according to a Richard Stockton College/Zogby poll made public Wednesday.

The majority of high school parents who believe higher education should be a budget priority would trade off improvements to roads and infrastructure if that meant additional funding for New Jersey's colleges.

The poll found 60 percent of the parents support more aid to elementary and high schools, 54 percent support addition funds for colleges and 37 percent want additional aid for healthcare.

The poll results come a day after the Christie administration lost out on a chance to gain $400 million in federal aid for public schools through, at least in part, a mistake on the application. In an effort to overcome a $10 billion 2010-11 budget deficit, Christie cut $1 billion in state school aid and about $170 million in aid to public and private colleges.

"The point is driven home by the fact that nearly every single respondent in every demographic category said it is important for their children to go to college (98 percent overall), and it was likely they would do so," Sharon Schulman, director of Stockton's William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy, said.

The New Jersey parents were asked a series of 40 questions concerning such topics as higher education funding, paying for college, perceptions of two-year schools vs. four-year schools, public vs. private, and school reputations.

Majorities in all groups rated positively the overall quality of New Jersey's county colleges, public and private four-year institutions, and most anticipated their children would attend a four-year public college or university in New Jersey.

The telephone survey, commissioned by Stockton, polled approximately 2,000 parents of students in grades 9-12 statewide and included extra sampling I in Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, Ocean and Salem counties from July 15 to 27.

The margin for error was plus or minus 3.5 percent statewide and plus or minus 4.1 percent in the southern counties.

In addition to geography, the respondents were broken down according to age, race, gender, income and level of education.

Most parents had a more positive view of four-year institutions over two-year institutions, but that private four-year schools were not seen as superior to public ones. Cost is the major factor parents cite for sending their children to a public college or university.

Overall, 73 percent of parents statewide and similar amounts in the oversampled counties thought more funding should be available for higher education.

Among acceptable tradeoffs for getting more funding, in addition to infrastructure (31 percent statewide), choices included less money to programs for small businesses (26 percent) and paying higher taxes (22 percent).

Scholarships were the top choice to pay for college among 67 percent of parents statewide. Children paying their own way was chosen by more than 30 percent of the parents.

Seventy eight percent of the respondents throughout the state said their children were likely to attend a college or university in New Jersey, and in most cases they would select a four-year college or university and more than half said it would be a public one.

Of those who say their children are not likely to go to a private four-year school, three-quarters say the main reason is cost.