The Backyard of Higher Education

Rutgers University takes up a little less than half of the City of New Brunswick. Despite the wealth that it has, as a higher education institution in New Jersey, Rutgers is exempt from paying property taxes to the city. According to New Brunswick City Administrator, Tom Loughlin, this makes it difficult for the city council to keep taxes low for city residents from year to year.

The Gateway Transit Village on Somerset Street,
which includes the luxury Vue Apartments,
was built by DEVCO in 2012.

As Rutgers continues to expand through the city, creating more untaxed property, private companies such as DEVCO are also brought in to build more shops and more student housing and apartments. As a result, more and more of the city is also taken up by housing that the majority of the low income residents of the city can’t afford. When Rutgers takes up such an integral part of the city, it’s hard not to wonder why the university cannot do more for the residents that it shares space with every day.

Along with the economic issues, the stark divide between the university and the surrounding community also creates a sharp, cultural, and social rift.

Most people looking at New Brunswick (or Philadelphia or New Haven), simply see the university. Incoming students focus on the status of Rutgers as a higher education institution, and often don’t even know about the struggles of the surrounding community. Likewise, students attending Rutgers spend most of their time within the campus, problematically regarding the rest of the city as the “ghetto,” and not thinking much else of it, unless they’re worried about their safety.

The reality of New Brunswick becomes a shadowy underbelly, a sort of open secret that nobody really talks about. Instead of asking why the community around us is so starkly different, we simply pretend it doesn’t truly exist.