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In relation to getting college students to use for school assist, Principal Jason Ridge thinks his college is forward of the curve.
Two years in the past, Indiana adopted a requirement for college kids to fill out the Free Utility for Federal Scholar Help, with some exceptions. The state set a aim for 60% of highschool seniors to file the FAFSA by April 15, the deadline for desire for state assist — however in Blackford County, the place Ridge leads Blackford Junior-Senior Excessive College, 82% of scholars filed it.
Organizations equivalent to Heavin Faculty & Profession Readiness Companies and INvestEd supplied vital assist. They and college counselors had been obtainable to Blackford households all through the varsity yr to debate the FAFSA course of. And selling broad consciousness of the FAFSA requirement was additionally key, Ridge mentioned, regardless that 70% of Blackford college students in the end don’t pursue greater training.
“When 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 lecturers. The most effective factor they did is that they set it up as a commencement expectation that you simply’re going to get that carried out,” he mentioned.
Blackford County is properly above the statewide FAFSA completion common, however Indiana greater training officers are nonetheless celebrating the rise in FAFSA filings for the 2025-26 cycle.
The Indiana Fee for Greater 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 aim 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 below sure circumstances — had filed. Final yr, 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 usually wouldn’t even see on the finish of June,” the fee mentioned in a press release. “This yr’s success has proven that reaching 60% general 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 yr in the past, the FAFSA hasn’t encountered a number of technical issues.
However greater training officers and advocates are monitoring modifications on the federal and state ranges that might have an effect on monetary assist, together with President Donald Trump’s efforts to dismantle the U.S. Division of Training, which oversees the FAFSA.
CHE mentioned “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 in the end be impacted.”
Invoice Wozniak, vice chairman of communications and scholar providers at INvestEd, believes that there’ll ultimately be readability in regards to the federal state of affairs.
“Yearly, there’s one thing. The one fixed in monetary assist is change,” Wozniak mentioned.
On the state stage, lawmakers minimize working budgets for CHE and public schools by 5%. Nonetheless, Indiana’s two largest need-based monetary assist 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 will probably be $175 million, down from the estimated $225 million for fiscal 2025. However the fee reported that the $175 million would nonetheless be greater than the quantity awarded three years in the past.
FAFSA kind free of huge glitches this yr
Greater training officers mentioned the 2025-2026 FAFSA cycle has progressed a lot smoother than final yr’s.
For instance, this yr, the shape was obtainable in November as a substitute of December, and present information was accessible on the company’s dashboard and ScholarTrack, in keeping with CHE. The state, schools, and universities acquired scholar information rapidly and with solely “minimal glitches” in contrast to the earlier yr, the fee mentioned.
Wozniak mentioned the most recent 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 during the last couple of years had been put in place to make the shape submitting less complicated now had been working,” Wozniak mentioned. “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.”
Despite the fact that Indiana’s first-come, first-served deadline of April 15 for state funds has handed, Wozniak mentioned households will proceed to file, and the variety of completions will hold growing till this cycle ends on the finish of June subsequent yr.
“We’d like everyone to have all of it carried out on April 15, however that’s by no means the case,” he mentioned. “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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