Phil Murphy Says He Wants to Stem Brain Drain of Graduates From New Jersey

Phil Murphy announced he running for the 2017 Democratic nomination for New Jersey governor — 18 months before the state’s general election for the office.

In 2014, Murphy founded New Start New Jersey, and later launched New Way for New Jersey political organizations that have promoted issues like paid sick leave, a higher minimum wage and college affordability.

Murphy, a former Goldman Sachs executive and former U.S. ambassador to Germany, has been a lead fundraiser and donor to Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination.

Murphy says that most of the NJ Democratic candidates for Governor are ideologically similar so the election will be a referendum on the next gubernatorial candidates’ character and personality, not just the issues.

“It will be a question of how authentic are you; Are you authentic or is what you are doing or supporting just politically expedient,” he told Reporte Hispano. “It will be a referendum on ‘Who is the guy I can trust when the lights are out and no one is looking?’ The people in this state in the middle class are mad as hell and they are not going to take it anymore,” Murphy told Reporte Hispano.

A father of four, Murphy has been a financial backer of Hillary Clinton. He says he supports drivers’ licenses for immigrants here in NJ, and immigration reform.

With his eldest child in college, he says some of his best ideas center around making college more affordable and on STEM education and keeping high school and college graduates here in the state of NJ, once they graduate from what are some of the highest ranked public schools in the nation.

Murphy is paying more than $60,000 a year for his eldest child to attend college in Boston. College and higher-education affordability is a focus of his campaign for Governor. It has also been a top-of-mind issue in this year’s presidential campaign to date.

“The average debt of a college graduate in NJ is $28,000,” Murphy says. “We need a program that encourages students to study STEM- Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics- fields and that in turn offers them loan forgiveness for doing so if they stay in NJ to work beyond graduation.”

“College is unaffordable. We in NJ lead the nation in exporting our High School and College Graduates out of state,” where they no longer contribute to the Garden State’s economy. We used to be more like Silicon Valley here in NJ in terms of job creation and innovation and economic growth. We need to get back to that.”

Murphy advocates for a program of loan forgiveness wherein the state would forgive the student loan debt of students who major in STEM majors and remain in NJ to work beyond graduation. His idea he says includes a five to 10-year state loan forgiveness program for STEM graduates. Such a program would keep college affordable and keep New Jersey’s young people working and paying taxes in the Garden State.

He says companies in NJ and politicians like him should push for the private sector in the state to also offer student loan forgiveness the way Fidelity does in other states – as an employee benefit – for example forgiving $2000 a year in student loan debt annually up to $10,000. Fidelity has a program like this and Murphy says he admires it.

Murphy says that in a competition for votes between himself and other democratic candidates for Governor of the State of NJ- he is that guy. “I’m not afraid to do what is right for NJ’s future even if that means I am a one-term Governor,” he told Reporte Hispano in a one-on-one interview on May 17th, the week he announced he is running for Governor.

“We still here in NJ have a level of long-term unemployment of long-term unemployed vs. total unemployed that is among the highest in the nation. We lead the nation in zombie foreclosures,” which were higher in NJ in 2015 than 2014, Murphy says.

Murphy was the first Democratic candidate for Governor to announce his campaign for the office. “ I am willing to be a one-term Governor. I am not someone who is part of some machine, a political machine and I not afraid to do what is right. We need leadership that focuses on the next generation not just the next election.”