New Jersey Scholarships & Grants (2027-2028): TAG, NJ STARS & Garden State Guarantee Deadlines

Senior in the 2026-2027 School Year? The Aid Year You Need Is 2027-2028

New Jersey, and the FAFSA, name an aid year for the year the money gets spent, not the year you fill out the forms. If your student is a senior right now, you are working through the 2026-2027 school year on aid labeled 2027-2028. That is not a typo and you are not early. This page is the one you want.

The shortcut: take your student’s high school year and add one. Senior in 2026-2027 means every form, deadline, and award you are chasing says 2027-2028 on it.

Your move: open the FAFSA and look at the year printed at the top. If it says 2027-2028 and your student is a senior, you are in the right place.

How New Jersey State Aid Actually Works

There are two doors, and you have to walk through both. Almost every dollar New Jersey gives an undergraduate runs through the same pipe: one application, then one portal.

• Door one: the FAFSA, or the New Jersey Alternative Financial Aid Application for students who qualify as NJ Dreamers. Filing it is what makes you a candidate for TAG, the Community College Opportunity Grant, the Garden State Guarantee, NJ STARS, and the Governor’s Urban Scholarship all at once. There is no separate state application for any of them.
• Door two: NJFAMS, the New Jersey Financial Aid Management System. HESAA builds a State Record from your application, then posts a To Do List of anything it still needs. Until that list is empty, the state has not finished deciding.

A few plain-English terms, because New Jersey uses one that no other state does.

• NJEI, the New Jersey Eligibility Index. New Jersey does not use your federal SAI (Student Aid Index, the number the FAFSA calculates to measure what your family can contribute). It runs its own formula on your FAFSA data and produces the NJEI. Every TAG dollar amount is keyed to that number, not to your income and not to your SAI.
• Last-dollar. An award that pays whatever is left after other grants are applied. If your other aid already covers the charge, a last-dollar program pays nothing. The Community College Opportunity Grant, the Garden State Guarantee, and NJ STARS all work this way. TAG does not.
• Tuition and fees versus cost of attendance. Cost of attendance is the college’s full published estimate: tuition, fees, housing, meals, books, transportation. Most New Jersey programs are written against tuition, or tuition and approved fees. Housing is almost never in scope.
• Payment, not year. New Jersey counts aid in semester payments, and every program has a different ceiling. This is covered in its own section below because it is where the money quietly runs out.

What the Tuition Aid Grant Actually Pays

TAG is the largest thing New Jersey does, and it is a published ladder, not a mystery. The amount depends on two things only: your NJEI and the type of college your student attends. There is no GPA requirement, no test score, and no separate application.

Full-time awards, academic year 2026-2027, from the HESAA award table released July 27, 2026. New Jersey resets these amounts annually with the state budget, so treat the 2027-2028 numbers as unknown until HESAA publishes them.

Reading the table: the county college column is an average across the 18 county colleges, so your student’s actual award may be higher or lower based on what that college charges. The state college and public research columns are standardized values; an award cannot exceed the tuition the college actually charges, but it can run above the standardized figure if that college charges more. Part-time TAG exists at county colleges only, at $774 per semester for 6 to 8 credits and $1,161 for 9 to 11 credits in the lowest NJEI band.

The Top 15 Percent List: How New Jersey Picks Its Merit Winners

Every New Jersey high school reports the top 15.0 percent of its junior class to HESAA. That report is the application for both of the state’s merit scholarships. Families do not fill anything out, and there is no place to opt in.

HESAA takes that file and splits it two ways. Everyone on the list is potentially eligible for NJ STARS, which pays county college tuition. HESAA then narrows to the students who rank in the top 5.0 percent with a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher and who live in one of 33 designated municipalities, and notifies them about the Governor’s Urban Scholarship. Students accept or decline the notice. That is the entire selection process.

The doors into NJ STARS

• Rank in the top 15.0 percent at the end of junior year or senior year. Either one, not both. A student who misses in June of junior year gets a second read after senior year. This is the single most useful sentence on this page for a family whose student had a rough sophomore or junior year.
• 15.0 percent means 15.0 percent. HESAA states that it applies a hard cutoff at exactly 15.0 percent, without rounding. There is no appeal for a student at 15.1.
• No test score. No essay. No interview. New Jersey’s merit programs do not read the SAT or the ACT at all.
• Enroll full-time at your home county college, meaning at least 12 college-level credits a semester, unless that college does not offer your program of study or the program has been oversubscribed for at least a year.
• Enroll within five semesters of high school graduation. After that the door closes.
• Residency: live in New Jersey for at least 12 consecutive months before high school graduation, or qualify under the 2018 law covering students who attended a New Jersey high school for three years and graduated from one.
• File the FAFSA or NJ Alternative Application every year by the state deadline, and complete the NJFAMS State Record. NJ STARS is not exempt from door two.

Your move: email the counseling office one sentence. “Did our school report junior class rank to HESAA for the Class of 2027, and is my student inside the top 15.0 percent?” You are not being difficult. You are asking about the only application New Jersey’s merit programs have.

The Payment Counter: New Jersey’s Most Expensive Fine Print

New Jersey does not fund years. It funds a fixed number of semester payments, and every program counts differently. Nothing on an award letter tells a family how many they have left, which is why students run out of state aid in the middle of a degree they are on track to finish.

Major New Jersey Programs

Six programs carry almost all of the money. Every one of them starts with the same FAFSA or New Jersey Alternative Financial Aid Application, and every one of them requires a completed NJFAMS State Record.

The 2 Plus 2 Math, Done Honestly

New Jersey is the rare state where community college first can be close to free and the four-year years afterward can also be close to free. It is also a state where the handoff between the two is where families lose money.

The appealing version: NJ STARS or CCOG covers county college tuition, the student earns an associate degree, transfers to a public four-year, and the Garden State Guarantee zeroes out tuition and fees in years three and four. On paper that is a bachelor’s degree with very little tuition paid. It happens, and for the right student it is the best financial move available in the state.

Four things have to be true for it to work, and each one is a place it commonly breaks.

• The transfer has to land at 60 credits, not 75. GSG defines third-year status as 60 to 89 accumulated credits and ends at 128. Credits that do not transfer cost tuition; credits that do transfer, plus AP and dual enrollment, push the student toward the 128 ceiling faster.
• The TAG counter has to have room left. TAG allows 9 payments toward a bachelor’s degree including any taken at the county college. GSG is last-dollar and pays what is left after TAG and Pell. A student whose TAG has run out is asking GSG to carry more of the bill in the exact years GSG is capped at four semesters.
• NJ STARS II has to be started on time. It begins no later than the second semester after county college graduation, requires a 3.25 associate degree GPA, and pays up to $1,250 a semester for four semesters. That is a maximum of $5,000 across the bachelor’s degree, and less than that for a student whose other grants already cover tuition. It is real money and it is not a college fund.
• The income has to stay under $65,000. Both CCOG and GSG are keyed to adjusted gross income at $65,000, reassessed every year. A raise, a second earner returning to work, or a one-time retirement withdrawal can end eligibility mid-degree.

Your move: before the student registers for a first semester at the county college, ask that college’s transfer advisor for the articulated program map to the specific four-year school and major you have in mind. New Jersey has statewide transfer agreements, but they work at the program level, not at the college level.

New Jersey Deadlines

The dates that repeat every year

Processed, not submitted. HESAA uses the date the federal processor finished your FAFSA, which happens after every required signature and consent is in. HESAA advises allowing at least three days, and says these deadlines are not extended for incomplete or partial documents.

The chain for the Class of 2027

How New Jersey Aid Stacks

New Jersey lets its programs run together, but three of them are last-dollar, which changes what stacking means. TAG and EOF are traditional grants: they add to your package. The Community College Opportunity Grant, the Garden State Guarantee, NJ STARS, and NJ STARS II all pay whatever is left of a specific charge after other aid is applied. Winning a private scholarship does not increase what you receive from those four. It changes who pays the same bill.

• Total aid cannot exceed the college’s cost of attendance. When a package goes over, the college reduces something, usually loans or its own grant money first.
• NJ STARS pays county college tuition less any state and federal grants already applied. A Pell-eligible student at a low-tuition county college may find NJ STARS pays little or nothing, because Pell and TAG already covered tuition. The scholarship is not being taken away; there is simply nothing left for it to pay.
• That same student is not worse off. Pell and TAG can be applied to charges beyond tuition, and CCOG picks up approved fees. Read the bill, not the award names.
• EOF students may qualify for TAG payments beyond the normal 9, which is the one place New Jersey adds capacity rather than subtracting it.

Two illustrative examples

These are illustrations, not quotes. The TAG figures are real, from the 2026-2027 award table. Everything else depends on your FAFSA and your college, and the 2027-2028 amounts are not set yet.

Common Ways New Jersey Aid Gets Lost

Almost none of these are academic. They are process failures, and process failures are fixable if you know where they happen.

Who Benefits Most From New Jersey Aid

Low-income families

New Jersey is built for you and the stack is deep: Pell, TAG at the top of the ladder, CCOG or the Garden State Guarantee depending on the college, and EOF on top with counseling attached. At a county college the tuition line can genuinely reach zero. The risk is not eligibility, it is documentation. Verification requests and the NJFAMS To Do List are what stand between the award and the account.

Middle-income families

This is where New Jersey has gotten harder and where the internet is most out of date. CCOG and GSG both stop at $65,000 of adjusted gross income for new students, and the $80,000 and $100,000 tiers are gone. TAG is the program that still reaches you, and it reaches furthest at independent colleges: the published table pays something at an NJEI as high as 10,499 in that column. If your student is looking at a private New Jersey college, do not assume state aid is irrelevant.

High-achieving students

New Jersey rewards class rank, and only class rank. Top 15.0 percent opens NJ STARS with no income test at all. Top 5.0 percent with a 3.0, in a designated municipality, opens the Governor’s Urban Scholarship. Neither requires an application. But be clear-eyed about scale: NJ STARS pays county college tuition, and NJ STARS II caps at $1,250 a semester afterward. A student choosing a four-year college directly should be chasing institutional merit, because that is the only money large enough to move a housing bill.

Students who test poorly

New Jersey is one of the best states in the country for you. No state aid program here reads an SAT or ACT score. TAG runs on the NJEI. NJ STARS and the Governor’s Urban Scholarship run on class rank. CCOG and GSG run on income. A student with a strong transcript and a weak test score loses nothing at the state level, and several New Jersey colleges award automatic merit off GPA alone.

Adult and returning students

CCOG has no age limit. What it requires is that you have not already earned a college degree, that your adjusted gross income is $0 to $65,000, and that you enroll in at least 6 credits a semester, which makes it one of the few tuition-free programs in the country that works part-time. TAG has part-time awards at county colleges as well. Independent students prove New Jersey residency for 12 consecutive months on their own documents. The state also maintains a Some College, No Degree resource page for adults returning to finish.

First-generation families

The eligibility rules are identical. The failure points are not. New Jersey’s system is portal-driven, and the two things that most often cost a first-generation family money here are an NJFAMS task nobody knew existed and a counselor conversation that never happened. Both are free to fix. The grade-level checklists and the first-generation parent guide are built for exactly this.

New Jersey Colleges That Stack Best

New Jersey pays the same TAG ladder at every approved college in a sector, so the state is not the variable. The college is. Two students with the identical NJEI can end up thousands of dollars apart based only on which school’s scholarship system they walked into, and on whether they hit that school’s deadline.

Award amounts live on each college’s own page, where they are audited and dated. This section is the map, not the numbers. Automatic here means what it means everywhere on this site: no essay, no interview, no committee.

The lowest academic bar for real money

• Rider University. Automatic first-year merit starting at a 2.70 GPA, and Rider accepts superscored test results. Deadline: rolling admission, with January 15 as the priority date for full scholarship consideration. Musical theatre and acting applicants face a November 15 deadline instead, which is the earliest date on this page.
• Monmouth University. A three-step automatic grid with entry at a 2.00 GPA, and each step carries its own renewal GPA. Deadline: March 1, which doubles as the regular decision and scholarship priority date.
• Saint Peter’s University. Transfer awards that start at a 2.00 GPA, plus grants tied to Hudson County residency and to Hudson County Community College. Deadline: rolling, so early is literally better here.

The clean automatic grids

These are the schools where you can predict the award before you apply, because the criteria are published and the process is mechanical.

• Saint Peter’s University. Named awards banded by GPA from 4.00 down, for both first-year students and transfers, and the largest published automatic awards in our New Jersey set. Deadline: rolling.
• Seton Hall University. Four university scholarship tiers plus a Catholic high school award and separate in-state and out-of-state named awards. Renewal at a 2.50. Deadline: rolling, submit by January 15 for full consideration.
• Fairleigh Dickinson University. Three merit tiers plus a family grant and a children-of-alumni grant that families rarely ask about. Deadline: rolling, FAFSA priority March 15.
• Rowan University. The Scholars Program is the public exception: an in-state award with a published 3.30 GPA entry and a 2.50 renewal. Deadline: apply for admission by January 31 for full scholarship consideration.
• Montclair State University. The Presidential Scholarship publishes a 3.40 GPA entry point, and there is a Phi Theta Kappa award for transfers that does require a separate application before the first semester. Deadline: rolling admission.

Automatic full tuition

No New Jersey college in our database publishes an automatic full-tuition award. That is worth saying plainly, because families arriving from states where a test score buys full tuition will look for it here and not find it. In New Jersey, the closest thing to free tuition at a four-year college is the Garden State Guarantee, and it is need-based, public-only, and limited to the third and fourth years.

A different model entirely

• Rutgers University, New Brunswick. One application, one deadline, and the university assigns the award. Rutgers runs a single award process rather than a published grid, so there is no tier to aim at. Deadline: December 1, which is earlier than most families expect from a public university. Renewal requirements vary by award, generally a 2.50 or a 3.25.
• New Jersey Institute of Technology. Merit is awarded through named faculty and dean’s scholarships off the admission file, with a 3.00 renewal. Deadline: December 15 priority for both admission and merit consideration.
• Princeton University. No merit scholarships at all. Princeton meets demonstrated financial need with grants rather than loans, which for a low-income or middle-income New Jersey family can be the largest award in this entire section. It is also the hardest admission in the state, so it belongs in a plan, not in a budget.

The county college and transfer pathway

New Jersey protects transfer credit by law. The 2008 Comprehensive Statewide Transfer Agreement, known as the Lampitt Law, requires New Jersey public four-year colleges to accept the full credits of an Associate in Arts or Associate in Science degree from a New Jersey county college, generally 60 to 64 credits, satisfying the four-year college’s first and second year core requirements. A graduate should expect to enter with junior standing.

• It does not guarantee admission. It protects credits once a student has been admitted.
• The AAS and the AFA are not protected. Associate in Applied Science and Associate in Fine Arts degrees fall outside the law. A student in an applied program should confirm the credit outcome in writing before enrolling, not after.
• Upper-division majors leading to licensed fields, and majors accredited by an outside agency, are exempt. Nursing is the common example.
• The law covers publics. Many New Jersey private colleges have adopted similar policies voluntarily, but that is a policy, not a statute, and it should be confirmed with the specific school.
• Use NJ Transfer to check course-by-course equivalencies before registering for a first semester, and note that Montclair, Rider, and Saint Peter’s all carry Phi Theta Kappa transfer awards.

What changes financially on transfer: NJ STARS II starts and is capped at four semesters, the TAG payment counter carries over with the county college payments already deducted, and the Garden State Guarantee begins at 60 accumulated credits and stops at 128.

If you live just across the line

New Jersey state aid does not travel. TAG, CCOG, GSG, NJ STARS, and the Governor’s Urban Scholarship all pay only at approved New Jersey institutions, and all of them require 12 consecutive months of New Jersey residency. A New Jersey family sending a student to a Pennsylvania or New York college is walking away from every dollar on this page. That is sometimes still the right decision. It should just be a decision, made with the number in front of you.

Coming the other way, two New Jersey publics carry named out-of-state tuition waivers for nonresident freshmen: Montclair State’s Garden State Gateway Award and NJIT’s Highlander Gateway Scholarship. Rowan carries a separate out-of-state award for nonresident freshmen. For a family in Bucks County or Rockland County, those waivers are the reason to run New Jersey numbers at all. Note that Montclair’s award name is close to the state’s Garden State Guarantee and the two are unrelated: one is a college discount for out-of-state students, the other is a state program for New Jersey residents only.

Smaller New Jersey Programs Worth Checking

Narrower programs, but each one fits somebody, and several have deadlines that have nothing to do with the September 15 date.

Sorting by grade point average rather than by program? The scholarships by GPA guide is organized that way.

New Jersey State Aid FAQs

Does my senior file the 2026-2027 or the 2027-2028 FAFSA?

The 2027-2028 one. Aid years are named for the year the money is spent, not the year you fill out the form. A student who is a senior during the 2026-2027 school year starts college in fall 2027, which is the 2027-2028 aid year. Take your student’s high school year and add one. If the form at the top of the screen says 2027-2028 and your student is a senior, you are in the right place.

What GPA or test score do you need for NJ STARS?

Neither one. NJ STARS is awarded on class rank: the top 15.0 percent of a New Jersey high school class at the end of either junior year or senior year. Either one qualifies, so a student who missed as a junior gets a second read as a senior. HESAA applies the cutoff at exactly 15.0 percent without rounding. There is no SAT or ACT requirement and no separate application, because eligibility comes from the rank file the high school reports to HESAA.

How much is the New Jersey Tuition Aid Grant?

For 2026-2027, full-time awards run from $2,176 to $14,404 a year depending on your New Jersey Eligibility Index and the type of college. The highest awards go to students at independent non-public colleges, at $14,404, followed by public research universities at $10,964, state colleges at $9,496, and county colleges at an average of $3,098. HESAA resets these amounts every year with the state budget, so the 2027-2028 figures are not set yet.

What is the income limit for the Garden State Guarantee?

An adjusted gross income of $0 to $65,000. The same cap applies to the Community College Opportunity Grant. Both programs used to reach higher incomes, but the tiers covering $65,001 to $100,000 were eliminated for new students starting in 2025-2026. For a dependent student, only the parents’ adjusted gross income counts. Families with a negative adjusted gross income are not eligible.

Does New Jersey state aid cover housing?

Generally no. TAG, the Community College Opportunity Grant, the Garden State Guarantee, and NJ STARS are all written against tuition, or tuition and approved fees. Housing and meals are usually the largest remaining cost for a student living on campus, and college scholarships and federal aid are what reach them. The Survivor Tuition Benefits and Law Enforcement Officer Memorial programs are narrow exceptions that reach further.

Can you get NJ STARS and TAG at the same time?

Yes, but NJ STARS pays second. NJ STARS covers county college tuition less any state and federal grants already applied, so Pell and TAG are subtracted first. A student with a large Pell Grant at a low-tuition county college may find NJ STARS pays little or nothing. That is the program working as designed, not an error, and the student is not worse off, because Pell and TAG can be applied to charges NJ STARS never covered.

What happens if you miss the New Jersey FAFSA deadline?

State grant aid for that academic year is generally gone, and HESAA states that deadlines are not extended for incomplete or partial documents. Federal aid runs on a separate and much later schedule, so file anyway. Note that there are two state deadlines, not one: the application must be processed by September 15 for first-time filers or April 15 for renewals, and the State Record in NJFAMS must be complete by October 1. Missing the second one costs the same as missing the first.

Does New Jersey state aid work at an out-of-state college?

No. TAG, the Community College Opportunity Grant, the Garden State Guarantee, NJ STARS, and the Governor’s Urban Scholarship all pay only at approved New Jersey institutions. New Jersey also requires 12 consecutive months of residency, so a family cannot move and collect immediately either. The one thing that does travel is the NJBEST 529 Scholarship, which requires an accredited New Jersey school as well. If your student is considering a college across the state line, price the New Jersey option with state aid included before comparing.