And while graduate students enrolled at the university received more than $192 million in federal loans in 2013-2014 academic year, undergraduate students at Rutgers received more than $230,962,547 in federal loans that same year, according to the university’s official 2013-2014 financial aid report. The board approved similar increases of about 2.3 percent for most graduate students.  Rutgers University, New Jersey’s premier public university, continues to dominate top spots in several national college rankings — it ranks 26th among the nation’s top public schools and 30th in campus ethnic diversity, among other accolades. Medical schools in the Caribbean are often a refuge for students rejected from top American schools, but their tuition easily rival schools in the United States. Ranked 19th on the list was Rutgers University, the only public college to appear in the top 20 alongside pricy private universities like New York University and for-profit colleges like the University of Phoenix. Elizabeth Baylor, the director of postsecondary education at Center for American Progress and author the new report, argued in a 2014 analysis that cuts in-state funding of public colleges have made a bachelor’s degree or advanced degree very unaffordable for students across the country.
– Just one public university made it on the list of the top 20 US colleges receiving the most graduate-student loan money—an elite group that received 20%, or $6.5 billion, of the total amount of funds loaned to graduate students in the 2013-2014 academic year, the Washington Post reports. According to a study from the Center for American Progress, New Jersey's Rutgers University—No. 26 on this year's US News & World Report list of top public colleges in the nation—squeaked in at No. 19, holding its own with NYU, Columbia, and 17 other private schools. USA Today notes that Rutgers is among the pricier public schools in the nation, and NJ.com notes that it just hiked tuition about 2.3% for both undergrad and grads for the upcoming academic year. Students aren't surprised: "A lot of my friends' parents who live in New Jersey make a decent salary," an out-of-state grad student at Rutgers tells USA Today. "[But it's] not enough to fund college completely and also not enough for these students to receive wage-based grants from the federal government." (Check out the 19 private schools that make the loan-heavy list at the Washington Post.)