Testimony of Maria Heidkamp Chief Innovation and Policy Officer, New Jersey Council of County Colleges for the Senate Higher Education Committee Hearing on Funding

October 5, 2026

Open Slides

Thank you, Chair Cryan and members of the Senate Higher Education Committee, for this hearing on strategies to improve higher education funding. I am Maria Heidkamp, Chief Innovation and Policy Officer at the New Jersey Council of County Colleges, representing our state’s 18 public, two-year colleges, which educate and provide workforce training to more than 255,000 students across the state.

At the Council, we believe the future of higher education is collaborative. We have demonstrated this through the collective vision of our Opportunity Agenda, and through our deep partnerships with high schools, four-year colleges and universities, community based and social justice organizations, and with employers, especially through our Pathways Initiative.

Our commitment to collaboration extends to the 35 organizations that have joined our Future Ready New Jersey Coalition, which recognizes the critical role of postsecondary education to economic mobility and prosperity – especially in this time of unprecedented technological, demographic, social, and other change. We are working together to encourage New Jersey to adopt an ambitious goal of 75 percent of adults earning degrees and credentials of value by the year 2040. (We’re at 49% currently. Four in 10 New Jersey adults have no education beyond high school, and there are huge disparities by race, ethnicity, and geography.)

Doing this work requires adequate funding that recognizes that people and employers have different higher education needs and expectations than they did in the past, and that community colleges play a distinct role in our evolving higher education landscape.

• With the current level of funding – which has been flat for the past 4 state budgets (SLIDE 2), New Jersey reclaimed the bottom spot in the nation for state support of community colleges for the amount spent per student. At $2,562 per FTE, New Jersey is 73% below the mean ($9,468) and is 47^th out of 47 community college systems (SLIDE 3).
• If we add in County support to the State support, New Jersey, at $6,450 per FTE, is 56% below the mean ($14,680) and is 41^st out of 47 community college systems (SLIDE 4).
• When County Colleges were introduced in New Jersey, there was an informal understanding that the County would contribute a third, the State a third, and tuition a third. Instead, we’re at 23% County, 16% State, and 55% tuition (SLIDE 5).
• If you add the entire spending by community colleges in New Jersey – State, Local, Tuition, Financial Aid, philanthropic and federal grants – we are still well below all of our neighboring states (SLIDE 6).
• If you adjust for inflation, State operating aid would be $345 million instead of $169 (SLIDE 7).
• We face the same inflationary pressures as everyone else for the goods and services we need to run our institutions and to fairly compensate our faculty and staff. And we are reeling at the reality of the 34 percent increase in the cost for those colleges in the SEHBP – which must be entirely absorbed by the colleges with no state offset and could run between $40-50 million.
• As a result of these cost pressures, community colleges are facing program and staff cuts, with layoffs already underway on several campuses, and tuition increases, though we are still the most affordable option for college in New Jersey, with average annual tuition of $6,400 (compared to $17,000 for senior publics and $45,000 for independent institutions).

What would adequate funding for community colleges look like, and how can we improve our state budget process for higher education?

• We need to recognize that community colleges educate ALL types of students – those seeking degrees and certificates for credit, those seeking short-term nondegree and industry-valued credentials, and those pursuing dual enrollment.

New Jersey is one of only a handful of states that provides NO support for either noncredit or dual enrollment (SLIDES 8)—though both are increasingly important. Worried about costs and trying to balance education, work, and family demands, many students are opting for noncredit programs that may be less expensive, fast, and connect directly to jobs; students who enter this way often continue in stackable, for-credit degree programs (SLIDE 9). And dual enrollment accounts for close to 1 in 5 community college students in New Jersey – similar to national trends (SLIDE 10).

We believe the state should invest $25 million in operating aid for colleges to deliver noncredit programs that lead to industry valued credentials. We believe the state should provide $20 million to cover dual enrollment costs for low-income students, who do not have equitable access to dual enrollment, which research overwhelmingly shows leads to better postsecondary outcomes and lower costs.

• We should align funding with evidence-based strategies that lead to increased persistence and completion. In recent years, New Jersey has cut College Readiness Now, which reduces the odds of low-income students ending up in developmental (aka remedial) education. New Jersey has cut the Community College Opportunity Grants, which a report by OSHE and HESAA last year found improved persistence and outcomes for all demographic groups that received support. And we’ve faced 50% cuts to Student Success Incentive Grants, which colleges often use to help support advisors and navigators who help our students stay on track – many of whom are juggling full-time jobs and families. Restoring these could run $20 million.
• We should incentivize further collaboration across the community college system such as through our Council’s Pathways Initiative, where colleges are co-developing and sharing industry-aligned, stackable curricula. Thirteen community colleges have teamed up on the Film Academy. Three make up the NJBioFutures public-private partnership. Two are launching our state’s first AI and Data Science Registered Apprenticeship. We are also seeking operational efficiency: the Council has a Joint Purchasing Consortium, but it is woefully under-resourced. Funding that encourages system-wide collaboration increases innovation and efficiency.
• We need to increase predictability and build in steady increases to keep pace with inflation. Needing to fight every year for operating aid – and not knowing the outcome until July – results in tremendous uncertainty for community colleges, which have to submit their budgets to their boards for approval much earlier in the year.
• Lastly, we need to allocate funds through a transparent, equitable, Performance-Based Funding Formula – which we do (SLIDE 11). With inadequate flat funding, however, the formula ends up feeling like a zero-sum game instead of truly rewarding good outcomes.

We have a policy choice to make: What kind of community colleges do we truly want in New Jersey?

Through our Council and together with all of our colleges, we spend every day striving to deliver affordable, life-changing education and workforce training to our students of all ages and backgrounds. We are committed to our anti-poverty, pro-economic mobility mission in our communities. We contribute $12.8 billion to New Jersey’s economy and power our state’s workforce. We do it on a shoestring—but we are an outstanding investment.

The last two slides I have included are from the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank’s 2025 Survey of Community College Outcomes (SCCO). The Richmond Fed developed this survey to collect data that showcases the unique mission of community colleges—which is distinct from four-year institutions.

Though we are bottom of the barrel for state funding, we are outperforming most other states in the Richmond Fed’s success metrics, which recognize that many of our students are part-time, that some transfer before completing degrees, that some are in nondegree workforce or dual enrollment programs.

We are proud of the collaboration NJCCC has promoted, and of the results our presidents, faculty, staff, students, and employer and community partners have achieved. We now ask for the help and leadership of this Committee, the full State Legislature, and Governor Sherrill’s Administration in re-thinking your commitment to us.