I've been hearing some great things about The College of New Jersey, so I decided to check it out for myself. This is the old Trenton State University, but when the state of New Jersey redrew the municipality lines, Trenton State ended up in the suburb of Ewing, NJ, and so the university took that opportunity to rebrand themselves, and so The College of New Jersey was born.

The campus is lovely, and it's growing. They've been adding 200 seats per year since 2019, and they intend to continue. The current undergraduate population is about 6800, a real sweet spot, in my opinion. Their growth has had zero impact on the average class size, which is 21, or the student faculty ratio, which is 13:1. Currently, only 7% of the students are from out of state, but those students are guaranteed housing for 4 years. In truth, most students choose to live off campus after the first two years.

The most popular majors here are education, biology, psychology marketing and nursing, which is a direct-admit program with a 100% NCLEX first-time pass rate. The nursing dean says hospitals put TCNJ students at the top of their lists for job placement, in no small part due to the rigorous nursing curriculum.

The career center has a dedicated advisor for each of the 7 schools: Arts and Communication, Business, Education, Engineering, Humanities and Social Science, Nursing and Health Science, and Science, and many professors/academic advisors also have contacts in their fields. In fact, during education interview days, local superintendents and principals often offer jobs on the spot.

TCNJ is a half hour to Philly and an hour and 15 minutes to New York City by train, with a station five minutes from campus. Princeton, NJ, a hub of pharmaceutical research and other industry, is 15 minutes away.

Here's the message I was asked to share: "We are not a commuter school! The average student goes home twice in a 16-week semester. Do not underestimate the College of New Jersey; students go on to pursue graduate work at Princeton, Dartmouth, Columbia, Georgetown, Harvard, Yale, BC, Penn, Hopkins, NYU, and Carnegie Mellon. Those seeking employment after graduation are hired by the likes of Boeing, Microsoft, MetLife, Pfizer, Bristol Myers Squibb, Deloitte, JPMorgan Chase, Madison Square Garden, and Amazon.

With over 200 student organizations, 30% of students in Greek life, and D3 sports, there's a whole lot to like at TCNJ.