this time of year prospective college students are typically awaiting financial aid offers from their schools of choice but colleges and universities across New Jersey and Nationwide are facing delays in receiving students financial information from the US Department of Ed's free application for federal student aid it's better known as FAFSA due to complications of course with the roll out of a new form which opened in December the delays and glitches are so widespread many colleges are now postponing enrollment deadlines to reign in the chaos education and Welfare writer Hannah gross is with me now to explain what it means for New Jersey's students Hannah so good to talk to you so walk me through first what this new FAFSA application is and why the US Department of Ed chose to roll it out this year yeah so the US Department of Education just released the better FAFSA which is supposed to be a more streamlined form with fewer questions that will hopefully allow people to get through the form faster they were actually supposed to release it a year ago um but they needed a bit more time and it seems like there's still some delays even with that extra buffer so what kind of glitches were they coming up against I mean are students able to apply at all what's happening yeah so typically the form is available beginning in October but this year it was not released until the very end of December and that was a soft launch that had some glitches so it really wasn't until in January later in the winter when people were really able to fill out the form and there are still some students who can't fill out the online form at all such as students whose parents don't have a Social Security number is this affecting freshmen only is it affecting students who are heading into their second third last year and have typically relied on that financial aid package the concerns are primarily surrounding freshmen who need to make this college decision and might not have their financial aid offers in front of them when they have to decide which school they want to go to if right now is the right time for them to pursue college at all so what schools have you spoken to in the state who are now saying hey you know what we're going to pump the brakes on enrollment yes so I reached out to some of the largest schools in New Jersey Ruckers which is the largest they're going to be postponing when their financial aid applications are due and also when the enrollment deadline is to June 1st Montclair State University and cane and Georgian Court are also delaying to June first and NJIT said they're monitoring the situation and may delay which might be true of other schools as well yeah I'm sure that there will be okay so I mean how many students are we talking about who typically use this and realistically what does it mean when there's a month taken off of that timeline yeah so nationally about 17 million students fill this out every year and so far the most recent data from the US Department of Education has a sitting at around 4 million that's a significant drop yeah yeah so it's much lower than in previous years and the whole process has kind of been delayed at every point and then as a student I mean you get those offers and you've got to really take a fine tooth comb to them to look through the different packages and what's going to be best for you that window now is a lot shorter for kids to make these decisions yeah so regular decision acceptances normally come out March early April and the aid offers are normally around that at same time but right now it's seeming like those Aid offers might not be able to get to students until a bit later which is why some schools are delaying the deadlines very quickly is there anywhere that students can go for help yeah so they can go to the US Department of education's website um the federal student aid office they can also in New Jersey go to the higher education Student Assistance Authority and they're offering some personalized support as well as students guidance counselors that's probably the best bet where you know you can talk to someone one-on-one and get that individual help all right Hannah gross for us thanks so much thanks for having me Bri