The spring 2019 semester will soon begin for college students, who are faced with a unique set of questions regarding their semester term bill amid the country’s longest federal government shutdown in history.

Some college students are furloughed government employees who may not have funds to pay for college at the moment.

Others are new or transfer students applying for federal student aid for the spring semester or the next school year, but they can’t access their tax return transcripts because the Internal Revenue Service website has been down since the end of 2018.

And there are the more familiar questions for students new to the process: What are all those fees on my bill?

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College administrators and government officials have been scrambling to find solutions to the questions related to the federal government's partial shutdown, which is in its fourth week.

The shutdown began Dec. 22, a day after the federal spending plan expired without a new plan in place because President Donald Trump and Congress couldn’t come to an agreement over allocating funds in the budget for a border wall.

Here are some temporary solutions New Jersey college administrators have found:

Furloughed students

Furloughed students have contacted Rutgers University-Newark saying they’re unable to pay their term bills at this time, university spokeswoman Dory Devlin said Friday.

“The university is asking any such students to contact us about getting an extension on a case-by-case basis,” she said.

Students have been asked to email a copy of their furlough notice letter to the university, along with their name, school and nine-digit Rutgers identification number.

The university website offered a reminder of other resources available to furloughed students during this time, including the campus food pantry, counseling center and CARE team to assist students in crisis.

Transfer students

Due to legislation Trump signed in September, some federal departments, including the Department of Education, are funded through Sept. 30, 2019. As a result, federal student aid, including Pell grants, work-study and loans, should be unaffected.

But the IRS is mostly closed for business during the partial government shutdown, and its website is down for maintenance. As a result, transfer students have had trouble getting transcripts of their tax information from the IRS so they can complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, which is required when applying for federal financial aid.

“Normally, if you go to IRS.gov and get an account for a transcript, you can print it immediately or have it mailed within five to 10 days,” said Ramapo College Financial Aid Director Shawn O’Neill. “But we’ve had about five to 10 students who called and said they couldn’t get access.”

IRS officials have said the tax transcript system has been offline due to routine maintenance. Officials at the National Association of Student Aid Administrators have said the government did not provide warning of the upcoming maintenance as it has typically done, The Washington Post reported.

The maintenance has been ongoing since at least Dec. 31.

The federal government issued guidance on Thursday to college financial aid administrators allowing students to submit 2016 federal tax returns in lieu of obtaining the tax return transcripts from the IRS website for those filling out their FASFA applications for the the 2018-19 and 2019-20 academic years.

“This has been the only issue coming through our office right now, and we’ve been working closely with the students,” O’Neill said. Bills for transfer students at Ramapo College are due Jan. 22, “so they still have time.”

Finally, the fees

For those new to the process of paying their term bill or starting a payment plan, there are some fees to pay on top of the tuition for the semester.

Tuition and some of the semester fees vary by campus, college, department and selected courses. Before the school year begins, a board of governors typically approves the tuition prices for the upcoming school year.

At Rutgers University, depending on what kind of student you are, there are mandatory campus, off-campus, school, computer, course, international student, new student, Douglass Residential College and meal plan fees.

Campus fees are charged to all full- and part-time students and are used to support student enhancement programs, services and facilities, the Rutgers student accounting office website says.

Off-campus fees are charged to off-campus and online-only students.

“The off-campus fee funds the additional costs borne by our schools to provide educational programs and related services to distant students, as well as resources such as the libraries and career services,” the Rutgers website states.

School fees cover the cost of individual schools’ enhancement programs, while computer fees cover technology on campus.

First-year, transfer and international students at Rutgers' Camden and New Brunswick campuses pay a new-student fee for orientation programs.

And for those who attend the Douglass Residential College in New Brunswick, a $75 fee is charged for special programs on that campus.

Rutgers students also have fees for the campus newspaper, the Daily Targum, at $11.25, and the nonprofit public interest organization NJPIRG at $11.20. Students can choose to opt out of those fees.

Email: carrera@northjersey.com