Great Things to Know About Rutgers

Explore the Great Things to Know about Rutgers and discover what makes Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, a distinctive and highly respected institution in the Garden State, the nation, and across the globe.

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• Health Care
• Research
• Alumni & Donors

One of America’s
Great Universities

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a top national research university and New Jersey’s preeminent public institution of higher education. An academic, health, and research powerhouse, Rutgers is a university of academic excellence and opportunity and a change agent for the betterment of society.

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Great for 259 Years and Counting

• #1 University in N.J. for Dollars Devoted to R&D (National Science Foundation)
• 8th Oldest University in the Nation
• Top 100 National Universities: All Campuses (U.S. News & World Report)
• Top 50 Employer in N.J. (Forbes)
• 71,000+ Enrolled Students (Largest in N.J.)

#1 in R&D

Rutgers devoted more than $872 million to research and development in FY 2024, expending more in R&D than any other New Jersey university, according to the latest National Science Foundation data.

Top 50 Public Universities

Rutgers–New Brunswick, Rutgers–Newark, and Rutgers–Camden all rank among U.S. News & World Report’s Top 50 public national universities and Top 100 national universities. Rutgers is one of the only universities in the nation with each campus ranked in the Top 100.

Top 100 in the World

• Center for World University Rankings: Global 2000
• Reuters: World’s Most Innovative Universities
• National Academy of Inventors: Worldwide Universities Granted U.S. Patents
• QS World University Rankings: Sustainability

Outstanding Academics

• #1 in the Nation for Women’s History (U.S. News & World Report)
• #2 in the Nation for Food Science and Technology (U.S. News & World Report)
• #3 in the World for Philosophy (QS World University Rankings)
• 40+ Top 25 Programs

• Latest Rutgers Rankings
• Top Ranked Graduate Programs

Removing Financial Barriers to a Rutgers Education

Low or No Tuition Programs

Bridging the Gap, RU-N to the Top, and Scarlet Guarantee are income-based financial aid programs that help cover in-state tuition and fees and reduce student debt.

Scarlet Promise Initiative

Need-based financial aid and emergency assistance are supported by $85 million+ in donations given to the university since 2022.

Rutgers Future Scholars

A national model for success, this precollege program puts academically promising, low-income, first-gen students on a path to earning a college degree, with high school graduation rates as high as 99% and college enrollment rates as high as 88%.

Students on the Path to Success

Prachi Shashidhar

Honors College Finance Major

World-Class Education

Rutgers makes access to a world-class education a priority for our outstanding students. They are academically talented, driven, and experienced, which is why hundreds of employers work with Rutgers to recruit the bright new graduates who will advance their widely varied enterprises and organizations. Rutgers students are recognized for excellence as top national scholars, and they excel in every field imaginable.

A Rutgers Degree Pays Off

• Rutgers job fairs attract hundreds of employers
• Top 5% in the nation for ROI 20 years post-graduation
• $70,000 year-one median starting salary
• 9 in 10 gain internship/professional experience
• Six months out, nearly 90% of graduates are employed, furthering their education, serving in the military, or in a service program

Record Applications

Rutgers received a record-setting 244,000 applications for admission in academic year 2024–2025, affirming the university's prestige and popularity.

Great Futures Start at Rutgers

• #5 in the World Job Placement for Business Schools (LinkedIn)
• #16 Public University in Nation Graduate Employability (Times Higher Education)
• Top 5% in the Nation for ROI 20 Years Post-graduation (Payscale)
• 14-Time Top Producer of Fulbright Students

Top Students, Top Prizes

Andrew Krapivin

Churchill Scholar

Andrew Krapivin, a 2023 Goldwater Scholar, was named a Churchill Scholar in 2024, the first Rutgers–New Brunswick student in a decade to earn the award funding graduate education at the University of Cambridge in England where he is studying computer science.

Andrea Olavarrieta

U.S. Department of State Fellowship

Andrea Olavarrieta was one of 10 undergraduates nationwide awarded a 2024 U.S. State Department Foreign Affairs Information Technology Fellowship, supporting her remaining years of baccalaureate study and paving the way for appointment as a Foreign Service diplomatic technology officer.

Julianne Chan

Udall Scholar

Environmental engineering major Julianne Chan was named both a 2024 Udall Scholar and Goldwater Scholar and a 2023 NOAA Hollings Scholar for her outstanding achievements as an undergraduate, including collaborating with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection on a project analyzing the prevalence of microplastics in wastewater.

Paul Boyd

Truman Scholar

Rutgers–Camden’s first Truman Scholar, philosophy major Paul Boyd will receive support for doctoral study leading to a career helping the incarcerated pursue higher education and prepare for life after prison. The award recognizes students who demonstrate outstanding leadership potential, a commitment to a government or nonprofit sector career, and academic excellence.

Commitment to Scholarship and Service

19 Years of Goldwater Scholars

Annie Wei, Elisa Bu Sha, Julianne Chan, and Anisha Jackson were named Barry Goldwater Scholars in 2024, extending to 19 years Rutgers’ streak of students earning the nation’s preeminent undergraduate research scholarship.

Building a Culture of Service

Hundreds of students, like Santiago Díaz de León Domínguez, participate in the Rutgers Scarlet Service program, which provides paid public service internships at nonprofit and government organizations to improve democracy and advance the common good.

Rutgers Team Wins International Supply Chain Competition

By triumphing at the 2024 Institute for Supply Management International Student Case Competition, Rutgers Business School M.B.A. students ended the three-year reign of Maastricht University in the Netherlands.

Stellar Faculty Drive Discovery

Lindsey McDougle, School of Public Affairs and Administration

2024 Faculty Service Award Recipient

Forging New Paths

Leading scientists, scholars, artists, and practitioners, Rutgers faculty come to New Jersey from across the nation and around the world. This international constellation of superb minds is forging new paths for discovery, creating new knowledge across disciplines, and teaching and mentoring the creative and nimble workforce we need as a nation. The work of our faculty is supported and recognized by the most esteemed academies, agencies, associations, and foundations. The scholarly influence of our faculty extends well beyond spaces where their everyday endeavors yield brilliant results.

Guggenheim Fellows

Three Rutgers–New Brunswick professors have earned a 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship, a prestigious honor recognizing their vital work in addressing pressing challenges facing humanity. The Rutgers candidates were among 188 fellows selected from a pool of 3,000 across 52 disciplines.

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Teachers, Scholars, Researchers

• 25,000+ Classes Taught Annually
• 44,300+ Scholarly Publications by Faculty, 2020–2024
• 42 Current Recipients of NSF CAREER Awards
• 80+ Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Recognition for Excellence

Jayne Anne Phillips

Pulitzer Prize in Fiction

Honored for Night Watch, her “beautifully rendered novel set in West Virginia’s Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in the aftermath of the Civil War.” Jayne Anne Phillips is Board of Governors Professor of English Emerita and founding director of the M.F.A. program in Creative Writing at Rutgers–Newark.

Martin Blaser

Research.com Best Microbiology Scientists

Ranked 7th most prominent microbiologist in the world and known for his “immunology research that focuses on disease and how it connects with microbiome.” Martin Blaser is the Henry Rutgers Chair of the Human Microbiome and director of the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine.

Shawna Hudson

National Academy of Medicine Member

Recognized for addressing “vital U.S. health system implementation challenges for vulnerable populations [including] research that integrates care of cancer and other chronic illnesses for patients and families.” Medical sociologist Shawna Hudson is Rutgers Health vice chancellor for dissemination and implementation science.

"John Lewis: A Life" by David Greenberg

Notable Biography

“This richly insightful biography tells the full story of the civil rights hero who became a long-serving U.S. representative and a moral force in America.”—New York Times reviewing John Lewis: A Life, by David Greenberg, professor of history and journalism and media studies.

Life-Changing Health Care

M. Maral Mouradian, M.D.

Director of the American Parkinson Disease Association Center for Advanced Research at Rutgers

Health Care for All

Rutgers improves health care across New Jersey, pioneering new treatments, offering the latest clinical trials, and delivering compassionate clinical care. Rutgers educates the next generation of providers at the state’s top schools for medicine, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, public health, and health professions. Rutgers Health, New Jersey’s academic health center, partners with RWJBarnabas Health to jointly operate a world-class academic health system dedicated to reducing health disparities and delivering high-quality health care for all.

• Explore Health Education and Patient Care at Rutgers

A New Era of
Medical Education

Rutgers’ two medical schools are soon to become one. Amplifying Rutgers’ role as a leader in 21st-century medical education, the integration will position Rutgers with one of the largest and leading public medical schools in the country. While continuing to operate locations in both Newark and New Brunswick, the future Rutgers School of Medicine will be an unparalleled hub of biomedical and health sciences education, research, and clinical care.

• More about the future Rutgers School of Medicine

Leader in Academic Health Care

• #1 in the Nation for Liver Transplant Survival (Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients)
• 2.3 million+ Annual Patient Visits to Rutgers Health Practices
• #5 in the Nation, School of Nursing D.N.P. Program (U.S. News & World Report)
• $842.1 Million Annual Patient Care Spending

Top Cancer Care
in New Jersey

Rutgers Cancer Institute, New Jersey’s only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, partners with RWJBarnabas Health to provide premier research and patient care. The institute’s new home, the Jack and Sheryl Morris Cancer Center, will be the state’s first freestanding cancer hospital.

• Read More about the Jack and Sheryl Morris Cancer Center

HELIX Fosters
Growth and Innovation

The Health & Life Science Exchange (HELIX) in downtown New Brunswick will house Rutgers medical school  facilities, research operations, and the New Jersey Innovation Hub. Storied Nokia Bell Labs also will move to HELIX, leveraging New Brunswick’s strengths in higher education and health care.

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Only at Rutgers

Parkinson's Center for Research

Rutgers is home to one of the nation’s nine American Parkinson Disease Association Centers for Advanced Research, delivering programs at the forefront of understanding a disease that affects 10 million people worldwide.

Health Care for 9/11 First Responders

The World Trade Center Health Program Clinical Center of Excellence—New Jersey’s only WTC health center—provides care at no cost for first responders with health conditions related to the 9/11 terror attacks.

New Jersey’s Only Dental School

The Rutgers School of Dental Medicine is the state’s largest provider of oral health care, with 137,000 annual patient visits.

A Great Research University

David Bushek, Marine Biologist 

Director of Rutgers’ Haskin Shellfish Laboratory

Supporting Innovation

Rutgers is one of the nation’s great research universities, an engine for economic growth, a problem-solver in the short term and for the long haul, and a generator of fresh ideas that open doors to what comes next. Rutgers annually attracts nearly $1 billion in funding to support innovators across the range of human endeavor. Our research is original, responsive, thought-provoking, and purposeful in a complex world of perpetual and fast-paced change.

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Research with
Economic Impact

• 1,233 active patents
• 100 active startups
• 1,557 unique technologies in active portfolio
• 243 companies engaged in research with Rutgers

• Explore the Rutgers Research and Innovation Annual Impact Report

State-of-the-Art Facilities

Over 300 Rutgers research centers and institutes empower our faculty and students to create knowledge, advance economic progress, improve lives, and enrich our humanity.

• Explore Rutgers Research Centers and Institutes

A Leading Research University

• $969.5 Million in Research Grants and Sponsored Programs (FY 2024)
• 1,390 Unique Technologies in Active Portfolio
• 255 Companies Engaged in Research with Rutgers
• 300+ Rutgers Research Centers and Institutes

Wide-Ranging Research

Ocean’s Secrets Revealed

The internationally acclaimed Center for Ocean Observing Leadership (RUCOOL) is unlocking Earth’s undersea secrets. RUCOOL’s latest big thing is the world’s first circumnavigation of the ocean by a sensor-laden undersea robot.

Using Data to Reduce Crime

Using analytics to combat crime, Risk Terrain Modeling (RTM) is a proven solution for making communities safer by forecasting high crime areas. RTM, developed at the Rutgers School of Criminal Justice, uses data and technology to help the public and police analyze crime patterns, prioritize responses, and take action.

Making Bridges Safer

The Rutgers Bridge Evaluation and Accelerated Structural Testing facility (BEAST) is the world’s only full-scale bridge laboratory that gathers critical data on how extreme weather and heavy traffic weaken a bridge’s structural integrity—creating, in just one year, a decade’s worth of real-world wear and tear.

World’s Top Jazz Archive

The New York Times calls Rutgers–Newark’s Institute of Jazz Studies “the largest repository of jazz documents, recordings and memorabilia in the world,” with more than 300 archival collections, including an exceptional range of historic artifacts from jazz luminaries such as Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, Ben Webster, Ella Fitzgerald, Lester Young, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, and Mary Lou Williams.

Rutgers Geologist Helps NASA Plot Future Artemis Moonwalks

Rutgers geologist Juliane Gross is a member of NASA’s geology team for humankind’s first return to the moon in more than 50 years. The team is planning the areas to be explored in the Moon’s South Polar region, mapping the paths the astronauts will take on the surface, and determining the mission’s science activities.

Essential Database for Scientific Breakthroughs

Key to medical and biological discovery, the Protein Data Bank (PDB) at Rutgers–New Brunswick is the world’s only open-access, 3D digital archive for proteins, DNA, and RNA. PDB structures enabled the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for computational protein design and protein structure prediction.

Rutgers Innovations in Everyday Life

Impossible Burger

Developed at the Rutgers Food Innovation Center.

How the Impossible Burger got its start at Rutgers

Cranberry Varietals

Found in most cranberry products and developed at Rutgers’ Marucci Center.

Top Provider of Cranberry Varietals in North America

Grass Seed

Varieties developed at Rutgers are found everywhere from backyards to Yankee Stadium.

Rutgers Partners with Turfgrass Innovators

Lumber from Recycled Plastic

Invented by Rutgers engineer Tom Nosker.

Inventor of Recycled Plastic Lumber Receives Highest Honor

Alumni and Donors Make a Difference

Members of Rutgers’ global alumni community leave their mark wherever they go, whether they are winning Olympic gold medals, steering Fortune 500 companies, or developing new therapies to treat cancer. And donors, many of them alumni, fund access to a Rutgers education, support vital research, and advance the common good.

Wide Network of Alumni and Donors

• 617,000+ Alumni Worldwide
• 383,000+ Alumni Live in New Jersey
• 33,400+ Donors (FY 2024)
• $256.4 Million in Donations (FY 2024)
• $2 Billion+ Endowment Fund (FY 2024)

More Ways to Explore

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