And what would you imagine those to be?
I'm half-awake, so sorry if this is a rough read.
Without knowing when mikefla was an undergrad there (based on his earlier posts, I'd guess sometime in the 1970's, but I'm not so sure), I'd mostly wager it has to do with Cornell's Ivy League pedigree. I'm not implying that they didn't have ringer athletes, but rather, the Ivy League schools, even now, seem to uphold the traditional "college experience."
If he was at Cornell during the timeframe that I guessed (or earlier), then that was before the mass commercialization of basically everything, including college sports.
Rutgers might have been that way at some point, but probably hasn't had that atmosphere since before I was born. It's unfair of me to say that Rutgers as a whole isn't a place where the "traditional college experience," football games, fraternity parties, etc. is dead. I personally know more than a few students that do indeed partake in the traditional college experience. However, being a non-isolated state university, there is a significant population of students that simply don't participate.
Another issue that can't be ignored, even though it sounds like a cop-out, is endowment. Rutgers does everything on a shoestring budget, which I imagine frustrates researchers.