List of New Jersey County Colleges

Old Queens, the oldest building at Rutgers University

Mead Hall at Drew University

Graduate College at Princeton University

As of 2026, the State of New Jersey recognizes and licenses 96 institutions of higher education (post-secondary) through its Commission on Higher Education. These institutions include eight public research universities, six state colleges and universities, fifteen private four year colleges, nineteen community colleges, thirty one religious institutions (as "Talmudic Institutions/Theological Seminaries"), and fourteen for-profit proprietary schools (as "Proprietary Institutions With Degree-Granting Authority"), two graduate schools, and one two-year religious college.^[1]

As of February 2026, the United States Department of Education listed 156 New Jersey institutions in its database. This includes technical and vocational schools that offer only certificates or job training, as well as degree-granting colleges and universities.^[2]

New Jersey was the only British colony to permit the establishment of two colleges in the colonial period. Princeton University, chartered in 1746 as the College of New Jersey, and Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, chartered on November 10, 1766, as Queen's College, were two of nine colleges founded before the American Revolution.^{[3][4][5]: passim.} In the 1860s, these two colleges competed to become the state's land grant college under the terms of the Morrill Act of 1862 which provided land and funding to expand development of engineering, scientific, agricultural, and military education at one school in each state. Rutgers received the designation in 1864 began to expand instruction in these areas and taking on a hybrid private-public role that paved the way for its transformation into a state university in 1945. Today, Rutgers is a large public research university serving over 65,000 students. Princeton remained a private college and developed into a research university that is one of the nation's eight prestigious Ivy League schools.

On August 22, 2012, then New Jersey governor Chris Christie signed into law the New Jersey Medical and Health Science Education Restructuring Act which divided the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) between Rutgers and Rowan University, creating two public medical schools.^[6][7] According to The Star-Ledger, the law gave Rutgers "nearly all of UMDNJ—including its medical schools in Newark and Piscataway—in one of the greatest expansions in the state university's history" and southern New Jersey's Rowan University would "take over UMDNJ's osteopathic medical school in Stratford."^[8]

There are three law schools in the state accredited by the American Bar Association; two at Rutgers (at the university's Rutgers–Newark and Rutgers–Camden campuses respectively) and the other at Seton Hall University's campus in Newark.^[9]

Colleges and universities

County community colleges

New Jersey has a system of 18 public community colleges at the county level statewide. This reflects the fact that each college serves one of New Jersey's 21 counties, except for Atlantic Cape Community College, Rowan College of South Jersey, and Raritan Valley Community College, each of which serves two counties. In 2003, governor James McGreevey created the New Jersey Community Colleges Compact, through Executive Order No. 81, as a statewide partnership to enable cooperation between the colleges and various state departments.^[14][15] The compact is administered by the New Jersey Council of County Colleges, which makes recommendations on the deployment and use of county college resources in addition to providing educational and training materials to the college administrations to further their goals. The council was founded in 1989 under statute 18A:64A-26 of the New Jersey legislature to promote the advancement of the county community colleges of New Jersey.^[15][16]

Not all of the county colleges were founded by the State of New Jersey; the oldest county college in New Jersey, Union College (New Jersey), was founded in 1933 by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration as Union County Junior College; it operated as a private college from 1936 to 1982, and merged with the publicly operated Union County Technical Institute in 1982 to become the current public institution.^[17]

School name	County served	Campus locations	Founded	Enrollment (fall 2024)	References	Main Campus view
Atlantic Cape Community College	Atlantic Cape May	Mays Landing and Cape May Court House	1964	4,052	[18][19]
Bergen Community College	Bergen	Paramus, Hackensack and Lyndhurst	1965	11,720	[20][21]
Brookdale Community College	Monmouth	Lincroft, Freehold Township, Wall Township, Neptune Township and Long Branch	1967	9,900	[22][23]
Camden County College	Camden	Blackwood, Camden, and Cherry Hill	1967	7,622	[24][25]
County College of Morris	Morris	Randolph	1968	6,131	[26][27]
Essex County College	Essex	Newark and West Caldwell	1966	7,026	[28][29]
Hudson County Community College	Hudson	Jersey City and Union City	1974	7,763	[30][31]
Mercer County Community College	Mercer	West Windsor and Trenton	1966	6,394	[32][33]
Middlesex College	Middlesex	Edison, New Brunswick, and Perth Amboy	1964	12,044	[34][35]
Ocean County College	Ocean	Toms River and Stafford Township	1964	7,095	[36][37]
Passaic County Community College	Passaic	Passaic, Paterson, Wanaque, and Wayne	1971	4,782	[38][39]
Raritan Valley Community College	Hunterdon Somerset	Branchburg	1965	6,762	[40][41]
Rowan College at Burlington County	Burlington	Mount Laurel	1966	6,620	[42][43]
Rowan College of South Jersey	Gloucester Cumberland	Sewell and Vineland	1966	7,904	[44][45]
Salem Community College	Salem	Carneys Point Township	1958	1,135	[46][47]
Sussex County Community College	Sussex	Newton	1981	2,247	[48][49]
UCNJ Union College of Union County, NJ	Union	Cranford, Elizabeth, Scotch Plains and Plainfield	1933	8,330	[50][51]
Warren County Community College	Warren	Washington	1981	944	[52][53]

Independent religious schools

Defunct institutions

See also

• New Jersey County Colleges
• Higher education in New Jersey
• Higher education in the United States
• List of American institutions of higher education
• List of college athletic programs in New Jersey
• List of recognized higher education accreditation organizations
• List of colleges and universities
• List of colleges and universities by country
• New Jersey student loan program^[63]

Notes

References

External links

• College & University Directory by Sector from New Jersey Commission on Higher Education