Merrillville High School

📋 At a glance

Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.

Stronger-than-average college-prep profile.

• ▸ StatewideAP rigor at the 71th percentile nationally with 6 AP courses.
• ▸ LocallyIN students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+8 points).
• ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Portage High School, Valparaiso High School, Lake Central High School and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.

🎓 Academic rigor

AP + advanced-course offerings

Elite — exceptional AP + advanced course breadth

71th percentile nationally

Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). CRDC reports what's offered + enrolled — it doesn't collect AP exam pass rates (College Board owns that data and doesn't release it school-level).

🎓 4-year graduation rate · federal EDFacts

What % of students graduate on time?

54th percentile nationally

Source: federal EDFacts ACGR (Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate), 2019 vintage via Urban Institute. EDFacts publishes a range (low-high) to preserve privacy on small cohorts; we display the midpoint.

👩‍🏫 Teacher workforce · federal CRDC

Teacher experience & reliability

Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2017-18 — the most recent vintage that publishes per-school teacher quality fields; the 2020-21 sweep had them suppressed). "Inexperienced" = teachers in their first or second year. "Chronic absence" = teachers absent 10+ days/year.

🏛️ Federal Title I context

Title I Schoolwide eligible

≥40% FRPL — qualifies for Title I Schoolwide program

40-74% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. The district can use Title I funds across the whole school under federal Schoolwide Program rules.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data, free/reduced-price lunch eligibility. The actual Title I designation is a district decision and may differ from eligibility — but the federal eligibility math is what we show here. We don't claim to assert whether the district formally chose to enroll this school in Title I.

🏛️ Your state's public flagship

Indiana University-Bloomington

The in-state tuition gap is the flagship's biggest draw — most in-state families pay far less than the out-of-state sticker. Average net price after aid runs about $16,264/yr. Admission odds depend on your student's GPA and test scores, not which high school they attend.

Source: IPEDS admissions, tuition & enrollment + College Scorecard net price. Flagship = the state's primary public research university.

💰 Pay for college in Indiana

Indiana's public scholarships

Indiana's signature aid is income-qualified and front-loaded: families must enroll in 21st Century Scholars back in middle school. The Frank O'Bannon Grant is the open need-based backstop.

Eligibility rules change yearly — confirm with the official program before relying on it. Amounts are recent published figures; awards cover tuition/fees, not housing or books unless noted. Verified 2026-06-14.

Chronic absenteeism

Why this matters to enrollment: Chronic absence is the most reliable early indicator that a student will leave a school — either by transferring out, dropping out, or matriculating to a charter or private alternative. At this level, today's absentees become next year's enrollment loss and the year-after's revenue loss. For school leaders: an Enrollment Trend Audit traces this dynamic forward →

Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020–2021. Rate = students chronically absent ÷ 2024 total enrollment.

Counselor capacity

Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020-2021. Counselor ratio = the school's most recent total enrollment ÷ counselor FTE. The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommends a 250:1 maximum; the US national median across schools with on-staff counselors is roughly 430:1.

Enrollment trend & projection

Total enrollment + grade 12, NCES Common Core of Data (2021–2024).

If the recent trend holds…

At its recent rate of +1.7%/year, projecting from 2024's 2,115 students:

An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.

Revenue upside

At $13,536 per student in district revenue, the 183 students projected to be gained by 2029 represent ≈ $2,477,088/year in additional funding.

District total revenue ÷ enrollment, NCES F-33. Public funding largely follows enrollment, so a shrinking class is a recurring budget hit.

Most similar nearby high schools

The schools most like this one — same type, blended on distance and size — and where their enrollment is heading. These are the schools families here weigh against each other.