Montclair State University’s News Lab students spoke with gubernatorial candidate Mikie Sherrill at an event in Montclair, New Jersey, on Oct. 11.
Along with the News Lab team, Montclarion Editor-in-Chief David Bien-Aime interviewed Rep. Mikie Sherrill at the Montclair Canvass Launch event on her plans and policies as a gubernatorial candidate for New Jersey.
Sherrill emphasized the importance of state tuition programs to help students attain higher education.
“It becomes even more important, now that we see all the cuts to higher education from the federal government,” Sherrill said. “So that’s why I want to push in some of the state tuition programs to help people attain higher education, but also make sure that we’re allowing people to stack their degrees.”
At the Montclair Canvass Launch Event on Oct. 11, Representative Mikie Sherrill spoke to Montclair State News Lab about higher education, infrastructure funding, and more. David Bien-Aime┃The Montclarion
She discussed the concept of stackable degrees, allowing students to earn credits through on-the-job training and community college. Sherrill explained how this would benefit students who don’t have enough money to pursue higher education immediately, but need to earn a living.
Students would be able to use some of their on-the-job work to develop credits at community colleges and start to stack their degrees until they’re ready for a four-year degree.
Sherrill shared the importance of expanding education and workforce training opportunities for college students.
“I no longer want it to be where you have this choice at the end of high school, whether you are going to go to college or never go to college,” Sherrill said. “I want to make sure that here we have a nimble workforce, so people can go back and get the training they need and get into the good jobs here in New Jersey.”
Sherrill highlighted her commitment to fighting federal cuts to Pell Grants and National Institute of Health (NIH) funding.
“I’ll continue to fight the federal government,” Sherrill said. “Because right now, Trump has cut a lot of money from Pell Grants. We’ll also continue to fight for that NIH and innovation money, because here in higher ed, in New Jersey, all of that federal money is so incredibly important as well.”
Sherrill also spoke on improving NJ Transit and advocated for robust funding, transit-oriented development and micro transit.
“NJ Transit is a huge issue across the state,” Sherrill said. “We just need to see more robust funding and we need dedicated sources of funding so it’s not constantly raising taxes or raising fares.”
Sherrill noted that she has allocated federal funds to micro-transit so people across the state have access to quality public transportation.
The District 11 Representative stressed her commitment to the Gateway Tunnel project, contrasting with Jack Ciattarelli’s stance.
“Jack Ciattarelli, my opponent, [speaking about President] Trump freezing that gateway tunnel funding — which imperils almost 100,000 jobs in the region [and] sets back the 200,000 commuters that take that tunnel every single day from New Jersey, said, ‘It’s not a New Jersey problem,'” Sherrill said, referencing an interview Connecting America conducted with Ciattarelli. “Well, I certainly disagree.”
Sherrill also addressed utility costs and business development.
“I’m going to declare a state of emergency on utility costs on day one,” Sherrill said. “I’m going to freeze rate hikes, that’s not something that Governor [Murphy] has focused on doing and it’s even called into question, but we are actually going to get stuff done, because I want to bring everyone together around the understanding that we can’t keep raising rates on families, we can’t keep raising rates on businesses, but actually have to attack and address the problem by driving a huge amount of energy into our grid system.”
