School of Management Cassetta Scholarship Reaches $100K

Raymond Cassetta, an alumnus of the class of 1970 and benefactor of Martin Tuchman School of Management's Financial Analytics Laboratory, recently extended the scholarship in his name to the $100,000 mark.

Cassetta enrolled in Newark College of Engineering at age 27, graduated with an industrial engineering degree, earned an MBA from Rutgers and made his career in labor relations. He was part of the founding advisory board for the Tuchman school, which established the original Cassetta scholarship in 2018 at the $25,000 mark.

Cassetta scholarships are designated for paying tuition, fees, and room and board of full-time undergraduate and graduate students maintaining an overall GPA of 3.5 or better. In particular, the scholarship looks to attract female students to be actively involved in the Ray Cassetta Financial Analysis Laboratory, which serves to teach financial literacy, give access to analytical tools, and offer Bloomberg certification.

Cassetta added that he's pleased with recent non-traditional developments at the Tuchman school, such as new areas of study in financial technology and real estate, for which he credited the work of current MTSM Dean Oya Tukel. "She brought the Martin Tuchman School of Management really into the modern era," he said.

"Ray's commitment to student success is invaluable to us," Tukel said. "He has been a great supporter of our students and our programs for many years. The additional funding he provided will help many more of our students who are in financial need."

Cassetta is happy to help fund scholarships, but he's equally happy giving priceless advice to incoming NJIT students. He suggests doing everything possible to graduate in four years, never cheat, and get involved in the college beyond just going to class.

Finally, he noted, be open to all opportunities in your career, even those which seem unrelated to your degree. "What your degree is and what your career turns out to be are often far different," he said. "I don't think too many 18-year-olds of my generation, or in the current generation, have much of an idea what they wanted to do in life."

Just as he did by switching from industrial engineering to management consulting, "Whatever background they have from the schools at NJIT will enable them to change to other fields without too much effort."