The new 2024-2025 Free Application for Federal Student Aid<\/a>, which is designed to simplify the process for applying for financial aid, became available on Dec. 30, 2023. The release of the new FAFSA coincides with 2023 Indiana legislation that requires high school seniors to file the FAFSA as a graduation requirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To support schools in implementing the new graduation requirement, the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation awarded nearly $5 million in short-term grants to 37 Marion County public schools, four community organizations, and the Indiana Commission for Higher Education as a part of V\u1ea5n \u0111\u1ec1 c\u1ee7a tr\u01b0\u1eddng \u0111\u1ea1i h\u1ecdc: \u0110\u1ed1i m\u1eb7t v\u1edbi th\u00e1ch th\u1ee9c<\/em><\/a>. Grantees have been working diligently to provide resources and support to students and families as they file the FAFSA. <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to LaSaundra Alexander, college specialist with Indianapolis Public Schools<\/a>, while they\u2019ve faced some challenges with the new form \u2013 like a glitch<\/a> that prevented parents without Social Security numbers from filing until late February \u2013 they\u2019re doing everything they can to assist students and families. IPS is holding a series of events, partnering with community organizations like INvestEd<\/a>, , Indianapolis Urban League<\/a>, and the Indiana Latino Institute<\/a> for support. \u201cI love that we have Indiana Latino Institute there to help provide translation for our Spanish-speaking families. That\u2019s a huge help,\u201d Alexander reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To encourage families to come out, IPS provides food at many of their events. They\u2019re also using gift cards and college-going baskets filled with things like extra-long sheets for dorms as incentives. Alexander, whose position is grant-funded, says they\u2019re thankful for V\u1ea5n \u0111\u1ec1 c\u1ee7a tr\u01b0\u1eddng \u0111\u1ea1i h\u1ecdc<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s very important to have funding for someone like me who can go into the schools and help students with all things college. The students need an extra person to talk to \u2013 to be a support \u2013 through this process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Krista Primrose, chief academic officer, and Cory Bess, postsecondary readiness manager, with Purdue Polytechnic High School<\/a>, were happy to report the new form is much quicker to complete. \u201cThe student portion now takes 15 to 20 minutes. The parent portion is a lot easier now too,\u201d which is a significant improvement over the old form, Bess reported. Bess\u2019 position is also grant-funded, enabling him to manage college readiness initiatives across all of Purdue Polytechnic\u2019s campuses. He works with high school college and career managers to send out messaging, run events, and implement college readiness initiatives starting as early as ninth grade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Primrose is optimistic about the new FAFSA completion requirement, especially in light of the Commission for Higher Education\u2019s new pre-admissions initiative<\/a>. \u201cThe increase of accessibility and attainability \u2013 I anticipate it\u2019s going to move the needle toward postsecondary education in a really positive way. I think we\u2019re right at a turning point, and it\u2019s exciting to see,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because the FAFSA launch was delayed, recent estimates<\/a> say colleges will begin receiving students\u2019 FAFSA data from the Department of Education in mid-March, which is later than usual. At that point, colleges will begin offering financial aid packages to prospective students. To help ease workload, the Department of Education announced<\/a> they will relax certain requirements so colleges can better focus on these financial aid packages.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Indy schools and community organizations come together to help students file the FAFSA and apply to college.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13606,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rmff.org\/vi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rmff.org\/vi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rmff.org\/vi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rmff.org\/vi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rmff.org\/vi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rmff.org\/vi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rmff.org\/vi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rmff.org\/vi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rmff.org\/vi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rmff.org\/vi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}