This award is granted to any New Jersey high school student who ranks in the top 10% of their graduating class at the end of their junior year.
This top 10% must also graduate as the first, second, or third ranking student in the class or achieve at least a 1260 combined critical reading and math score on the Scholastic Aptitude Test.
[4] The award was established in the 1989–1990 academic year and posthumously honors Edward J. Bloustein, the seventeenth President of Rutgers University.
Under this program, students who graduated in the top twenty percent of their high school class are provided with free tuition and fees at any New Jersey community college.
The NJ STARS II program provides full tuition for the student at participating New Jersey colleges.