Academic Excellence

The phrase “academic excellence” might conjure images of a hardworking, high-achieving student. We’ve got plenty of those at Rutgers. But we think there’s more to it.

Academic Excellence is one of our university’s core values and has been since our founding. Of course, that’s true for other universities, too. What sets Rutgers apart is our relentless commitment to increasing accessibility for our students, enhancing social mobility, and improving educational equity. We are devoted to making sure students with the talent to achieve excellence at Rutgers can study here and, once they’re here, supporting them in every area of their lives. This is our margin of excellence.

By removing impediments, we heighten achievement. We help the great become even greater. With this support, students can fulfill their potential in ways others can’t or won’t—in the classroom, in the laboratory, in the field, and in careers of meaning and consequence. This value reflects Rutgers’ commitment to inclusive access for students and our aspiration to be the national model for outstanding academic programs, social mobility, and educational equity.

The markers of this kind of excellence are broad and deep. They include timely degree completion, thoughtful career preparation, and lifelong learning opportunities. They are lives well lived and a society advanced by the best minds that come of age at our university.

Together, We Achieve Excellence

How do we achieve these outcomes? As a community, together, by embracing our students as whole people, providing them with unparalleled opportunities for experiential learning, and enabling their success before and during enrollment—and even beyond graduation.

We uplift our students through the combined impact of thousands of initiatives, programs, and funds, all of which are designed to enable students’ academic and career success by creating a broad zone of impact—one that begins with supporting middle and high schoolers on their path to college, continues in the form of unparalleled opportunities and comprehensive support during our students’ time on campus, and persists after graduation via career counseling and other resources

Learn how Rutgers is expanding access to higher education—a hallmark of academic excellence—with the Scarlet Promise Initiative.