Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation Invests $14M Through "College Matters" Initiative to Boost College Enrollment and FAFSA Completion in Marion County

In 2023, the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation launched College Matters, a two-stage, $14 million grantmaking initiative to increase college enrollment rates for Marion County high school seniors.

Stage one of the initiative, College Matters: Meeting the Moment, awarded nearly $5 million in short-term grants to Marion County public schools, community organizations, and the Indiana Commission for Higher Education to provide support to students and families in filing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and enrolling in college.

The Meeting the Moment grants to schools came at a time when they were determining how best to navigate a new state policy enacted in 2023, which requires all high school seniors to file the FAFSA. The grants to 37 Marion County public high schools within 17 school corporations enabled schools to:

• Strengthen the collection and use of student-level FAFSA and college enrollment data.
• Hire additional staff to focus on the FAFSA and college enrollment.
• Increase the number of FAFSA and college-related events.
• Improve FAFSA communications to students and families.
• Offer incentives for FAFSA completion or college acceptance.

Prior to Indiana’s FAFSA filing requirement, less than half of Marion County seniors filed the form. For example, the FAFSA filing rate for Marion County seniors in the 2022-23 school year was just 39.3%. This number increased to 62.2% for seniors in 2024-25, surpassing Indiana’s overall filing rate of 59.8%.

Looking specifically at the public high schools that received Meeting the Moment grants, the data shows a similar story. The Meeting the Moment grantees increased their FAFSA filing rates from 37.5% in 2022-23 to 64.7% in 2024-25 – an increase of more than 27 percentage points.

Since the conclusion of the Meeting the Moment grants at the end of the 2024-25 school year, nearly all schools have reported the improvements they made to their data systems and processes for tracking FAFSA filing and college applications will continue to benefit students in future years. For example, some schools have established systems for identifying students who plan to attend college but haven’t yet filed the FAFSA. These systems will enable schools to provide more personalized support in completing the form.