Governor Christie Working To Control Rising College Tuition Costs [AUDIO]

Governor Christie said he remains concerned about the rising cost of college tuition for New Jersey families and is taking steps to address it.

"We are increasing aid to higher education this year and hopefully that will help them try to control their tuition increases somewhat" Christie said during a press conference in Trenton on education.

The governor said over the past decade the state has gone through a period where there was no investment made in higher education.

"That shouldn't really surprise us that the universities had no other course to pursue other than to increase tuition in disproportionate amounts and the number of fees."

Christie said the question for the state heading down the road in better economic times, is whether we should invest more in higher education both in terms of direct aid to schools and capital investment.

"I have been having conversations with Senate President Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Oliver about having a significant investment in higher education capital plan in the state. I'm hoping that we can come to some kind of agreement where we can tell students that we are going to invest more money and we will have more seats in classrooms so that more kids will be able to afford to go to schools in New Jersey."

But Christie said there's no magic bullet to funding the state's higher education institutions.

"We're going to have to invest the money, but schools are also going to have to work even harder at controlling their costs as well."