NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee senior Geraldine Hernandez wanted to become the first in her family to go to college, but federal red tape in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid is choking out her dream.

Hernandez is one of several students featured by The Tennessean who planned to participate in the state’s Tennessee Promise program – a free college and mentoring program – but she’s now contemplating dropping out because of complications with her parents’ tax return.

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK

During the FAFSA tax verification process there were apparently issues with her father’s tax returns, and Hernandez was shuffled between officials at her school, the Tennessee Promise program and the IRS trying to get everything straightened out in time to start at Nashville State Community College this fall.

“I saw it as a simple road,” she told The Tennessean. “I didn’t think all of this would come up.”

The Tennessee Promise program helps provide “last-source” funding for Tennessee graduates to help them pay for higher education. In other words, after a student receives all of the federal and other financial aid they qualify for, the Tennessee Promise helps cover the rest.

To participate, students must apply for federal and other financial aid, meet with mentors, and complete some community service. The Tennessean reports Hernandez completed her community service months ahead of time, and arrived early to meetings with mentors, eager to do her part to secure a scholarship.

She submitted forms for scholarships, and gathered the necessary documents for her FAFSA, but the 18-year-old was brought to tears after learning that complications at the IRS with her father’s tax forms could take weeks to sort out and will likely cause her to miss the recommended July 15 FAFSA deadline.

“Even if she gets her paperwork in time, Hernandez said she might not go to college in the fall. She might take a semester or a year off while she regroups,” the Tennessean reports.

MORE NEWS: How to prepare for face-to-face classes

“If she waits, she said, she will take a job to help support her family, which lives paycheck-to-paycheck. She has spent part of her summer help her dad fix cars where he works.”

Ironically, Tennessee Promise Executive Director Mike Krause thinks that Hernandez’ situation illustrates that “the system is working.”

“Previously I think that student would have found themselves trying to complete verification with almost no support network,” he said.

The fact that Hernandez has three entities to coordinate – the government, her high school and the community college – is a good thing, in Krause’s eyes, because that means there are three people to help her.

“The state components that we can keep simple I think you have seen us put in place with the utmost of simplicity,” Krause said told The Tennessean. “We at least have in place wraparound supports that insure students are able to navigate” the IRS verification process.

Students can sometimes get extra time to submit necessary tax documents after July 15, and Tennessee will probably keep its Promise to Hernandez to help pay for college, he said.

Those things, however, are determined on a case-by-case basis, Krause said.

But it’s the uncertainty and angst in the process, precipitated by the bureaucracy at the IRS, that’s convincing students the program was designed to help – first generation college bound students like Hernandez – that pursuing a higher education may be more trouble than it’s worth.

“I have endless amounts of years to go to college,” Hernandez told The Tennessean. “I’ll still get there, it’s just a matter of when and how.”