"This class is about 4 credits, which would be a lot of extra money in the fall, but in the summer, being that it's half off, I'm saving a lot of money," Myberline Saint-Pierre said.
It is the second summer of discounts at St. Peter's College. The deal requires taking a minimum of two classes. Each summer credit is 636-dollars. A three-credit class would be 19-hundred-and-8 dollars. Under the discount, a second class would cost half, 954-dollars, for a savings of almost a thousand dollars.
"We did it really to help our students, and the affordability of their education at the college," St. Peter's College President Eugene Cornacchia said.
St. Peter's College is not alone in trying to balance its own financial needs with the devastating effects that the economy has had on the finances of students.
Several New Jersey colleges and others across the nation have offered summer discounts. The St. Peter's plan has drawn students from other institutions for the transferrable credits.
"We've had students come from both public and private institutions coming to St. Peter's College, and the publics are particularly interesting because the publics are priced well below us at it is," Cornacchia said.
Raghava Mardhi of Rutgers University is among the thousands of students struggling to pay for college.
"The incentives St. Peter's is giving, it's really helpful and it is encouraging, as you know, taking more classes. It's taken less burden on my parents as well," Mardhi said.
Summer enrollment here is back to normal after a 16 per cent increase last year. Officials speculate the economy became so much worse that many students did not try to enroll. But St. Peter's says it will offer different summer discounts in the future.
