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213 T hroughout his governorship and his life, education was important to Hughes. Many governors in New Jersey have focused on education, but Hughes may have been one of the most important , particularly in the area of higher education. In New Jersey, primary and secondary education is largely handled by local municipalities. Before and during Hughes’s governorship, the state paid a relatively small percentage of the costs, with most of the money coming from local property taxes. Thus, there was a noticeable disparity in quality between schools in affluent districts and those in poorer areas. The poorer districts were generally those located in inner-cities, where the population was becoming increasingly African American. Overall, local governments in New Jersey spent a great deal on elementary and high school education, but most of that money was being spent in the affluent districts. Hughes made significant efforts to increase state funding for primary and secondary schools, but the issue of adequate funding for schools in poorer districts would continue to perplex governors of New Jersey for many years. Hughes would have more influence when he became chief justice, however, as decisions made by his court significantly increased state funding for those schools. Higher education, on the other hand, had been consistently and dramatically shortchanged by the state. When Hughes became governor, “almost two-thirds of high school graduates left the state”1 to attend college. While New Jersey was home to a prestigious Ivy League school, Princeton, and a number of respected private schools, including Seton Hall, St. Peter’s, Fairleigh Dickinson, Rider, Drew, Caldwell, Georgian Court, St. Elizabeth’s, and Monmouth, it was significantly lacking in state-funded colleges. It Chapter 16 An Education Governor The LIFE and TIMES of R ICHARD J. HUGHES 214 had a good state university in Rutgers, an engineering school, the Newark College of Engineering, and it did have a number of other state colleges, but New Jersey’s facilities were grossly insufficient for the majority of in-state students seeking higher education. Not only were there not enough seats available, but most of the state colleges, other than Rutgers and the Newark College of Engineering, were primarily focused on teacher education. There was a dearth of opportunities for students who wanted a state education but did not want to be teachers. At the time, there was no county college system. During Hughes’s first year in office, he supported the creation of a whole new county college system and the expansion of the state colleges.2 These county colleges were to be two-year colleges—“established by one or more counties, offering programs of instruction, extending not more than two years beyond the high school, which may include but need not be limited to specialized or comprehensive curriculums, including college credit transfer courses, terminal courses in the liberal arts and sciences, and technical institute type programs.”3 These county colleges would be under the control of the Board of Education, which also ran the primary and secondary schools, and the commissioner of education was to assess the educational needs of any county that deemed it appropriate to create a county college. “If the State board finds such a need [educational] to exist and further finds that establishing and maintaining such college is financially feasible, it shall approve the petition and shall so notify the board or boards of chosen freeholders.”4 The county college system was to be funded by the county, the state, and the students. They would pick up some of the slack created by the absence of a larger state college system and enable many students to attend college without great expense. Many people still see this contribution to New Jersey’s higher education infrastructure as one of the great accomplishments of the Hughes governorship. Senator Richard J. Coffee, who served in the Senate while Hughes was governor and also helped to establish Mercer County College, stressed the importance of the creation of the county college system in permitting more New Jersey residents to at least begin their higher educational experiences in New Jersey.5 Despite the importance of the county college system, it was not a substitute for a larger state college system. Students who wanted a complete educational experience with the possibility of advanced degrees had very few opportunities within the state system in New Jersey. At this point there was still no public medical school and very little opportunity to...

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