Heartland Scholar House: From the Ground, From Above

The day-to-day at Heartland Scholar House looks like:

• Meeting with someone new to the program, still unsure all of this is possible. 

• Helping a Scholar figure out childcare so she can make it to class on Tuesday. 

• Sitting with a mom who just got hit with a bill she can't pay. 

• Walking someone through the financial aid process for the first time. 

• Connecting a family to a resource they didn't know existed. 

• Helping someone stay enrolled when life just handed her a reason not to be. 

• Watching a Junior Scholar do homework next to her mom. 

  
  

When we are doing this work, we are so focused on the person in front of us, and every little step that unlocks the big wins. We are in it.

In the new year we have the opportunity to zoom out and take a birds-eye view. It is the moment of truth. What did we actually accomplish?

The Scale

In 2025, Heartland Scholar House served 287 adults and 481 children across our three campuses in Anderson, Marion, and Muncie. Some of those mothers are enrolled in school. Others are on the path, stabilizing, preparing, removing the barriers that have to come down before a degree becomes possible. Every one of them is doing something hard.

We conducted 194 intakes. We delivered 7,418 services and 3,077 service hours. Our academic coaching sessions more than tripled. The number of Scholars we serve annually has grown sevenfold in just a few years.

When you're on the ground, those aren't statistics. They're Tuesdays.

Stepping back, they're something else: proof that this model works, and that the need is enormous.

Three Campuses, One Mission

Anderson, our flagship campus, founded in 2021, is proof of concept. Four years in, Anderson answers the question of whether this works. It does. Anderson leads all three campuses in credentials earned. That is what proof of concept looks like.

In Marion, Scholar House turned one year old in 2025 and has served 55 families. Scholars are already earning degrees and certificates, changing what is possible for single mothers in Grant County. 

In Muncie, our partnership with Ball State University brings a new opportunity. Scholars living on a university campus. Walking the same paths as any other student. With 76 intakes in 2025, the most of any campus, Muncie is our fastest growing campus, and we are just getting started.

What is revealed when we zoom out

The barriers our Scholars face are not academic. Not about ability. Not about drive. They are about everything that surrounds a person when she sits down to study: stability, safety, childcare, the $500 that could undo a semester of work.

When you're on the ground, you solve those problems one at a time. When you step back, you see the pattern: remove the barriers, and these women thrive. Our 84% residential success rate isn't a goal we set. It's what happens when the support is actually there.

That is where we landed in 2025. One family at a time, one step at a time. 

2026

We are now halfway through 2026 with over 42 Scholars enrolled in higher education and we have already surpassed the total service hours we delivered in all of 2025. This spring, we celebrated new completions. Read about it here. The growth is happening faster than ever.

All the time, we meet people who have never heard of Heartland Scholar House. A neighbor. A coworker. Someone sitting next to a Scholar in class who had no idea what made that seat possible. There are nearly 40,000 single mothers currently attending college in Indiana. Most of them are doing it without what our Scholars have. That gap is why we keep growing.

To every Scholar who let us stand beside them in 2025 — thank you.