Rutgers does not need state OK to add new degree programs, judges say

Rutgers University has sole authority over its academics and does not need the state’s approval to add new degree programs, as New Jersey higher education officials have long insisted, a state appellate panel ruled Wednesday.

The decision comes five years after state lawmakers expanded academic oversight of colleges and universities by giving the state Office of the Secretary of Higher Education veto power over new majors.

The office’s New Jersey Presidents Council had long been tasked with reviewing and commenting on proposed academic programs, but legislators in 2021 empowered state higher education officials to nix them if the council determines they would duplicate existing programs, require significant state funding, be unsupported by market demand, or fall short of “sufficient academic quality.” The members of the council, which was created by state law in 1994, are presidents and administrators of public and private universities and colleges.

But lawyers for Rutgers had argued that a string of laws dating back to the early 1900s that regulate higher education in New Jersey contained some exemptions for schools that existed before the late 1800s. Rutgers, now New Jersey’s flagship university with more than 69,000 students enrolled and over 27,000 faculty and staff, was founded in 1766.

So Rutgers challenged the new regulations soon after they went into effect in March 2022, saying they infringed on its autonomy and that state laws pardoned Rutgers from the new approval requirement.

Superior Court Judges Lisa A. Firko and Stanley L. Bergman Jr. agreed, reversing the Office of the Secretary of Higher Education’s administrative determinations in 2023 and 2024 that Rutgers had to comply with the 2021 changes.

“The State minimizes this expansion of its authority,” the judges wrote. “But, it is a significant difference for Rutgers.”

The appellate judges conceded that lawmakers began expanding state regulation over colleges and universities’ academic degrees in 1912 and repeatedly tweaked the regulations in multiple later laws. But those laws typically excused universities established 25 years or more before the 1912 law, which was 1887, the judges said.

And 70 years ago, New Jersey legislators passed the 1956 Rutgers Act specifically to prevent the state from exercising unlimited regulatory power over Rutgers, including by passing new statutes and regulations foisting new obligations on the school, the judges wrote.

That law also created Rutgers’ board of governors — a board that, by design, gives the state input over Rutgers academics, the judges added.

“The State was granted the authority to appoint the majority of the Board’s voting members (through appointment by the Governor, with the advice and consent of the Senate), and the Commissioner of Education was designated a non-voting member of the Board of Governors,” the judges wrote. “Thus, the Board of Governors serves as the oversight with respect to Rutgers’s academics and degree programs.”

Firko and Bergman also cited the Higher Education Restructuring Act of 1994 as a clear effort by legislators to restore autonomy to colleges and universities. That law gave colleges’ boards of trustees final authority over their institutions’ management, including program and degree offerings, they wrote.

“The Act was clearly intended to free public colleges and universities from the Department of Higher Education’s control over their operational decisions. Nothing in the Act’s history suggests that it was intended to impair Rutgers’s autonomy,” the judges wrote.

The judges said they also found no evidence the state has ever rejected any new programs Rutgers has proposed.

Dory Devlin, a Rutgers spokeswoman, didn’t have details Wednesday on how many and which programs the university has added or discontinued in recent years. But she said the school is “pleased” with Wednesday’s ruling.

“Today’s ruling preserves the University’s academic freedom to design and implement programs of its own choosing, consistent with its charter as codified under state law,” Devlin said.

Spokespeople for the state Attorney General’s Office and the Office of the Secretary of Higher Education did not respond to requests for comment.