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In the case of getting college students to use for faculty help, Principal Jason Ridge thinks his faculty is forward of the curve.
Two years in the past, Indiana adopted a requirement for college students to fill out the Free Utility for Federal Pupil Assist, with some exceptions. The state set a purpose for 60% of highschool seniors to file the FAFSA by April 15, the deadline for desire for state help — however in Blackford County, the place Ridge leads Blackford Junior-Senior Excessive Faculty, 82% of scholars filed it.
Organizations corresponding to Heavin School & Profession Readiness Companies and INvestEd supplied important assist. They and faculty counselors had been obtainable to Blackford households all through the college 12 months to debate the FAFSA course of. And selling broad consciousness of the FAFSA requirement was additionally key, Ridge stated, though 70% of Blackford college students finally don’t pursue increased training.
“In case you’re going to get that many children to finish it, you’re going to need to get buy-in out of your superintendent. You’re going to need to get buy-in from classroom academics. The most effective factor they did is that they set it up as a commencement expectation that you simply’re going to get that achieved,” he stated.
Blackford County is nicely above the statewide FAFSA completion common, however Indiana increased training officers are nonetheless celebrating the rise in FAFSA filings for the 2025-26 cycle.
The Indiana Fee for Larger Training, or CHE, reported that 55% of Hoosier seniors filed it earlier than the state’s precedence deadline of April 15, with 241 Indiana excessive faculties exceeding the 60% statewide purpose by that date. As of Might 14, CHE’s dashboard confirmed 57.4% of scholars had filed it. And 68.6percentof twenty first Century Students — college students who can obtain free tuition at in-state public schools and universities underneath sure situations — had filed. Final 12 months, as of mid-Might, practically 43% of all seniors had accomplished it.
“The completions we now have achieved at this level within the cycle we sometimes wouldn’t even see on the finish of June,” the fee stated in a press release. “This 12 months’s success has proven that reaching 60% total by April 15 is feasible.”
The federal deadline for this FAFSA cycle is June 30, 2026. As of Might 23, Indiana ranked eleventh for FAFSA completions nationwide. The fee and INvestEd, a free FAFSA help useful resource, credited a functioning kind and steady communication for the uptick. Not like a 12 months in the past, the FAFSA hasn’t encountered a number of technical issues.
However increased training officers and advocates are monitoring modifications on the federal and state ranges that might have an effect on monetary help, together with President Donald Trump’s efforts to dismantle the U.S. Division of Training, which oversees the FAFSA.
CHE stated “states and establishments are awaiting federal price range updates to be finalized earlier than understanding how the Pell Grant, different federal grants, Federal Work Examine and federal scholar loans will finally be impacted.”
Invoice Wozniak, vp of communications and scholar companies at INvestEd, believes that there’ll finally be readability concerning the federal state of affairs.
“Yearly, there’s one thing. The one fixed in monetary help is change,” Wozniak stated.
On the state stage, lawmakers minimize working budgets for CHE and public schools by 5%. Nevertheless, Indiana’s two largest need-based monetary help packages, twenty first Century Students and the Frank O’Bannon Grant, had been untouched by legislators.
CHE’s estimated allocation for fiscal 2026 Frank O’Bannon grants shall be $175 million, down from the estimated $225 million for fiscal 2025. However the fee reported that the $175 million would nonetheless be increased than the quantity awarded three years in the past.
FAFSA kind free of massive glitches this 12 months
Larger training officers stated the 2025-2026 FAFSA cycle has progressed a lot smoother than final 12 months’s.
For instance, this 12 months, the shape was obtainable in November as a substitute of December, and present knowledge was accessible on the company’s dashboard and ScholarTrack, in response to CHE. The state, schools, and universities acquired scholar knowledge shortly and with solely “minimal glitches” not like the earlier 12 months, the fee stated.
Wozniak stated the newest model of the shape, which is meant to be simpler and quicker to finish than the earlier doc, is assembly expectations.
“The shape was working most days, and the issues that over the past couple of years had been put in place to make the shape submitting less complicated now had been working,” Wozniak stated. “The processing is occurring. The colleges are getting the data. The state is getting the data from Washington, and we’re again to regular enterprise.”
Although Indiana’s first-come, first-served deadline of April 15 for state funds has handed, Wozniak stated households will proceed to file, and the variety of completions will maintain rising till this cycle ends on the finish of June subsequent 12 months.
“We’d like everyone to have all of it achieved on April 15, however that’s by no means the case,” he stated. “There are folks on June 20 that say, ‘I’ve modified my thoughts. I’m going, and I’m going to file that FAFSA,’ as a result of they had been sure they weren’t going.”
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