One of Jersey City’s biggest higher education institutions may be changing their name amid a plan to pursue a merger with Kean University.
New Jersey City University (NJCU) has been hit with a myriad of financial issues in recent years. The problems began when a state comptroller report revealed former university president Sue Henderson and other administrators mismanaged $14 million in pandemic relief funds before Henderson resigned with a $288,000 severance payment, car, and housing subsidy.
The New Jersey Monitor reported in detail on the school’s financial issues last year, which added up to nearly $300 million in debt and capital needs. NJCU had been looking for a partner to take them on and the university’s Board of Trustees voted this month to pursue a strategic merger with Kean University.
“The Board’s decision follows a deliberate and thorough evaluation of strategic options aimed at ensuring the long-term sustainability of the University’s mission and strengthening our commitment to students, faculty and staff, alumni and the Jersey City and Hudson County communities we serve,” the board said in an issued statement.
In announcing the path forward, the Board – in consultation with NJCU President Acebo, members of his administration, and a state appointed fiscal monitor – satisfies the Secretary of Higher Education’s benchmark to identify a fiscally sound New Jersey public institution before the end of this month.
The move should hopefully put an end to the saga of NJCU, which declared a fiscal emergency in June 2022 citing a $22 million operating deficit. The university will continue to be overseen by a state-appointed monitor through at least September of this year as the merger moves forward.
While Kean has proposed that the university be rebranded as Kean Jersey City, officials with NJCU told Jersey Digs that decision has been made regarding the name. The university will still look to offer enhanced educational opportunities and drive economic development.
NJCU boasts a student body where more than 60% are from Hudson County and more than half are first-generation college students, with an undergraduate population about 45% Latino and 21% Black.
NJCU’s campus has been built up in the last decade with their University Place project, although the school did at one point plan a failed arts center that perhaps could have been seen as the canary in the coal mine for their financial woes.
Neither NJCU nor Kean University have announced exactly when the merger will be finalized, or when NJCU will take on its new moniker.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article has been updated from an earlier version with comments clarifying the proposed changes to the university’s name and correcting financial figures regarding NJCU’s operating deficit.
