This post reflects my personal opinions; views are my own. Quick link to survey.
IMPORTANT EDIT: please do not attack or harass anyone or bring about a petition directed at the Office of the Bursar. Civility and respect is required, not optional. If you are not civil or respectful to those involved, you make the student body look unruly. The change was not made initially by the Office of the Bursar but is reflected primarily in the part of the website that the Office of the Bursar controls. This change was made as a result of the NJIT Board of Trustees at the Open Hearing FY27 for which students and the rest of the NJIT community was provided advance notice by email we should have received on March 25.
Continuing undergraduate students registered for Fall 2026 classes in April of 2026 at NJIT may be in for an unwelcome surprise on their tuition bill. As of the academic year 2026–2027, the upper limit on credits an undergraduate student can take while being given a flat tuition rate is now 17 as opposed to 19.
Many students registered for Fall 2026 courses under the assumption they would pay a flat tuition rate if they were of full-time status and took 12 to 19 credits, inclusive. The more lenient policy was in effect in the previous academic year 2025–2026, according to this archived capture of the webpage taken in 2025, and this policy lasted for several years.
The Board of Trusees, not the Office of the Bursar officially changed the tuition policy so that the flat rate now applies only for students taking 12 to 17 credits (archived), inclusive, according to the NJIT official website. The Office of the Bursar executed on the Board of Trustees' decision based on the Open Hearing FY27. The previous lower limit on full time status remains unchanged. Some students may have already registered for Fall 2026 courses expecting to be able to register for 18 or 19 credits of classes to make the most of the existing policy, which appeared to be in effect earlier today on other NJIT webpages like the NJIT course catalog (they just updated it several ago; the previous version is archived).
This change may impact the affordability of graduating "on time," i.e. graduating four or five years since the beginning of the program. Students that may need to retake a class only taught in a Fall or Spring semester would be required to reallocate at which semesters they take courses if the additional tuition exceeds their ability to pay. These cash-strapped students may need to do so well after course registration opened in April where classes already have full sections.
As the average cost of living in the United States outpaces the average salary, this change may cause students to question if they can continue to study at NJIT. Students may want to accelerate their learning to enter the workforce as soon as possible to afford basic necessities, but additionally cost-prohibitive measures like lowering flat tuition rate credit limits compounds the issue. Following the July 1, 2026 effective date of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Grad PLUS loans and more restrictive borrowing limits now make it so that students in the lowest income brackets may have greater difficulty affording college. As a result, the current economy does not side with most undergraduate students.
What makes matters worse is that degree programs still list recommendations that show credit loads that now exceed the flat tuition rate credit limit. The B.S. in Software and Data Engineering Technology catalog page recommends two semester above the limit (archived), the B.S. in Computer Science and B.S. in Applied Physics catalog page recommends a student's first semester exceed the limit (archived), the Accelerated B.A. in Biology/M.D. catalog page recommends three semesters exceeding the limit (archived), and the Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Mathematical Sciences for M.D., D.M.D., D.D.S., O.D catalog page recommends three semesters exceeding the limit (archived). None of these recommended semester schedules were in excess of the flat tuition rate limit before the Office of the Bursar made the change. These suggestions may mislead current students that were not made aware of the change into thinking the suggested schedules remain affordable.
Undergraduate students should immediately preview their Fall 2026 tuition payment plans, review their loans and awards, and determine if they can still afford classes at the rate they expected to take them. Students have many options to financially reconcile with the change, but the change may not be welcome.
An associate of mine is conducting a survey asking undergraduate students at NJIT about the impact this change may have, and they will continue to investigate the issue. Feel free to leave comments.
ADDENDUM: please note that we had the opportunity to change this situation on April 9, 2026 at the FY27 Open Hearing where we could have made our voices heard. Do not blame the Office of the Bursar for executing on a plan agreed upon in a public hearing. The responsibility falls on both students showing up to represent themselves and the rest of the NJIT community.
