Semester Disbursement and Refunds
For the Spring 2025 semester, financial aid, which includes student loans, cannot be disbursed to a student’s account until the college can confirm enrollment for the semester. This is a Federal/State financial aid requirement. The reason behind this requirement is that certain aid eligibility is based on the number of courses/units a student is registered for during the semester. Therefore, we must wait until after the Add/Drop period for course adjustments has ended and the Spring semester schedules are finalized before we can disburse aid. We anticipate this process will take place on or around February 19, 2025.
After the aid has been disbursed to the student’s account and the term bill has been paid, the Office of Student Accounts will process any credits on the account as a refund. Traditionally, it takes 14 days for the College to process a refund. For questions on the refund process or about direct deposit information, please visit the Student Accounts website: https://studentaccounts.tcnj.edu/
Newly Admitted Fall 2025/Spring 2026 students:
Estimated financial aid award notifications will go out at the end of March 2025. Once awards are available for review, notices will be sent to the email address used by the student on the Common Application.
Please continue to monitor this website for further updates.
2025/2026 Official Award Notifications
Official financial aid award emails for the 2025/2026 academic year are sent to your TCNJ email address starting in July of 2025. Only complete FAFSA records will receive a notification. You will be able to log into PAWS at that time and view your 2025 Fall and 2026 Spring financial aid. Please make sure your FAFSA is completed as soon as possible and that there are no outstanding items on your To Do list in PAWS.
Fall bills will be sent by the Student Accounts Office in July as well, please reach out to that office with all your billing/payment questions.
2025/2026 General FAFSA Information
The FAFSA, available on December 1, 2024, has undergone changes and updates. You can read more about the changes here: General FAFSA Information
Incomplete Files/Missing Documents
We highly recommend students monitor their “To Do” list in PAWS on a weekly basis for any missing documentation. When submitting documents to the office, please make sure that they are legible, accurate, and signed (if required) and that all requested pages are submitted. Incomplete documentation will result in delays in processing your aid. Any/all requested documents will have instructions for submission.
TCNJ Authorized Users (Auxiliary Access)
Our office can only speak to students about financial aid matters unless the student grants the parent/guardian authorized user status.
Cost of Attendance Budgets
View our current cost of attendance budgets. Please note that the final cost of attendance budgets for the 2024/2025 academic year will not be available until prior to the billing date in July. The College’s budget is contingent on the NJ State budget, which is signed after July 1.
General Information
Review the billing calendar for important dates. We know that applying for financial aid can be overwhelming. That’s why we’ve assembled these video tutorials, grouped by topic, to help you navigate the process. For account/log-in questions, please contact the TCNJ Helpdesk.
Various options are available for parents looking to borrow loans for the next academic year. You can review the information listed for the Federal Direct Parent PLUS Loan, the State’s NJCLASS Loan, and private loans listed under the Alternative Student Loans or ELM Select. Each one of the links will send you to the corresponding website with more information on how to apply.
Due to federal regulations, we cannot recommend one loan/lender over another. In addition, we suggest that when you apply, you apply for the entire academic year. When applying for the year, lenders send the first half of the loan in September to cover the Fall bill and the second half in February to cover the Spring bill. We recommend researching how student loans work by visiting our financial aid tutorials page.
Office Operations
The Office of Student Financial Assistance continues its hybrid office operations for the academic year.
We have staff coverage in the office at all times. The Office is open Monday through Friday, 8:30 A.M. – 4:00 P.M. during the academic year. The office is closed on Fridays during the summer.
If you have any questions, please email us at osfa@tcnj.edu or call 609-771-2211.
If you need to submit documents to our office, you may do so via one of the following methods:
Email: Scan and send to osfa@tcnj.edu
Fax: (609) 637-5154
Regular mail at:
The College of New Jersey/Office of Student Financial Assistance
Green Hall, Room 101
P. O. Box 7718
Ewing, NJ 08628
The office is open for walk-in questions Monday through Friday from 8:30 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. Students may also request an appointment by phone or virtual format. Please email us at osfa@tcnj.edu with your request for an appointment.
Thank you.
Private Scholarship Awards
Federal regulations require students to report yearly award amounts and descriptions of any grants and scholarships received from sources outside of The College of New Jersey. See more information about private scholarship awards.
State Updates
The State of New Jersey has updated its financial aid deadlines.
Financial Aid Process Updates
Income tax data can easily be transferred from the IRS to your FAFSA using the IRS Data Retrieval Tool. Transcripts or a signed home copy of your tax forms will be required if you are selected for verification and you did not use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool.
NJ HESAA’s Upload Center
Do you owe a document (or two or more) to HESAA? Effective May 2023, you will need to log into your account first.
