By Maria Carrasco, NASFAA Staff Reporter

Meet Heidi Carl, NASFAA's 2025-26 national chair!

Heidi is the assistant vice provost and executive director of financial aid at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, and began her career in financial aid at the University of Indianapolis, where she credits her former boss, Linda Handy, as an inspiration and someone who took a chance on her. 

“Linda saw something in me and decided to take a chance that she could teach me the world of financial aid, even though I didn't know a thing about it,” Heidi said. “As they say, the rest is history, because that's where I started in financial aid and fell in love.” 

At the University of Indianapolis, Heidi was promoted to the associate director of financial aid. She has also served as both the associate dean for enrollment and director of financial aid at Wabash College.

Throughout her career, Heidi has served in many roles at the regional and national levels, including serving as president of the Midwest Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (MASFAA), chair of NASFAA’s Career Awareness Thought Force, and as the MASFAA representative on NASFAA’s Board of Directors. 

At the NASFAA 2025 National Conference, Heidi explained her hopes for the profession, that rather than simply weathering the storm, financial aid professionals can “be the storm” and make impactful changes through their work. During this Today’s News interview, Heidi further explained that message. 

View Heidi's speech on YouTube.

“For me, ‘being the storm,’ it's all about taking even the deepest, darkest days and trying to find the positivity and the silver lining in it all,” Heidi said. “Even when I talked about the new reconciliation law, there is a lot to work through there. There are some provisions that will help students, like Workforce Pell. However, some aspects of the law aren't the best – but how do we move forward? How do we wrap our arms around things?”

Heidi pointed out that NASFAA President and CEO Melanie Storey had a similar message in her opening remarks at NASFAA’s 2025 conference, when she highlighted LeVar Burton's book, “The Rhino Who Swallowed A Storm.” 

“When you read that book, it's really about swallowing things up and moving forward – making the best out of life, even when life deals you difficult situations,” Heidi said. 

In her remarks at NASFAA 2025, Heidi also talked about being a lighthouse in the storm, and shared with Today’s News that she sees NASFAA as a lighthouse. 

“I see NASFAA as that beacon of hope, to be our advocates, to help us digest and make sense out of things that sometimes seem insurmountable,” Heidi said.

As she begins her tenure as 2025-26 national chair, Heidi took some time to discuss her goals for the next year and what inspires her as a financial aid professional.

What do you think is the biggest issue facing the federal aid programs right now?

The biggest one right now is the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” Working through what Congress and the president laid out for us to implement is going to be one of the biggest challenges. 

Obviously, a big piece of that is the elimination of the Grad PLUS loan program, and knowing how difficult that's going to be for our graduate students and our graduate programs. We’ll have to work through everything from loan proration to Workforce Pell to the Grad PLUS loan elimination. What will those changes mean, especially coming right on the heels of FAFSA simplification? Our profession is ever changing, so this will be the latest challenge we need to face going forward.

What are your top three goals for your tenure as national chair?

The biggest goals for me are working on NASFAA’s strategic plan, looking at diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, and promoting our profession. 

It is a strategic, long-range planning year for NASFAA. We're in year three of our three-year plan. One of the top goals is going through the process of reviewing where we are in meeting our current strategic plan and what we want our next plan to be. 

A piece of that is taking a look at our diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging work, and truly doing an inventory of our programs, policies, and mission in order to make sure that we are living our mission and doing what we want to do.

A big goal for me is to help promote and elevate our profession. We just recently released the Career Awareness Toolkit, and I want to work with my peers across the country to use the tools put together by our task force. There are some amazing things in there that tell the story of the work that we do. 

We are also fortunate to have Melanie Storey as NASFAA’s new CEO and president. A big goal for me, as I chair the Presidential Transition Task Force, is to make sure that we give her a great launching pad and a great introduction to our membership. I know she's out there right now talking with all different groups and listening to what the NASFAA membership has to say. A big priority for me is to stay connected with Melanie and listen to what she's learning, and then use that as we move forward as an association. 

If you could change one thing about financial aid, what would it be?

The one thing I would change ties into something that's a goal of mine, and that's the recognition of the immense diversity of our profession. Some folks don't recognize all the work we do as financial aid administrators, such as our core competencies, the different pieces that we need to know, and the different areas of a student's experience that we walk alongside them through. 

Some may think, “Oh, you just administer what the federal or state government, or your institution's policies, tell you to do.” It's so much more complex than that. What I would change is to allow people to understand what it means when someone says, “I'm a financial aid administrator.”

My most motivating financial aid experience is…

Working with colleagues and being a mentor. I love the work that we do with students, and that's why I stay in it. But my biggest motivating financial aid experience is being able to do training, presentations, and workshops. My favorite one to do is the MASFAA Summer Institute and Leadership Symposium. We help work with, train, and mentor future leaders for our association, their schools, and their communities. That's really where my passion is. I love the educational piece and lighting that fire within people to stay in our profession. We need good people to work with us and to continue to do this work even when it's tough. 

Who has been the biggest professional influence for you over the years, and why?

I'd have to go back to where I started, and that would be my first boss, Linda Handy. She really taught me financial aid. I remember in my early days sitting and doing hand calculation after hand calculation, but it truly taught me how the formula worked. When I reflected on it, she took a chance on me to hire me when I didn't know a thing about financial aid. She really was an inspiration. She was a true advocate for students. She would meet with state legislators and was always a great resource for them when they needed to talk through potential legislation that was going to be introduced. I'm always so thankful for the opportunity that she gave me.

If you were not working in financial aid, what career would you pursue?

I would own my own bakery or cafe. My dad owned a restaurant when I was little. My mom actually owned a bakery when I was growing up. It was amazing serving others and I still love to bake. I know there are many fans of my chocolate chip cookies out there. I would own a shop where I could sit down with folks, break bread, and fill their stomachs as much as I fill their hearts full of love and kindness.

What’s on your summer reading list?

I started this book a while ago, and honestly, things got a little busy, but I need to finish it. But the one book I want to pick back up is “How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen” by David Brooks. I think it's a really good perspective post-COVID-19. The book is a lot about how do you really get to know people? How do you build community? How do you make sure that others know that you truly and genuinely care for them more than just a casual acquaintance? I picked it back up in the last few weeks after the conference, and I’m hoping to get it finished.

What's on your bucket list, or any upcoming travel plans?

I'm headed to Michigan to hang out with my family. There’s nothing better than Michigan in the summer. It's my happy place. That's where I was born and raised. I'm a Western Michigan University graduate, so I’ve spent a lot of time there. 

As for future travel, NASFAA celebrates its 60th anniversary next year in National Harbor, Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C. My spouse, Dusty, and I will actually celebrate our 30th anniversary next year, and so I see Hawaii on the horizon. We don't have it booked or planned yet. We may wait until I'm done with my NASFAA chair tenure. It might be our celebration as we finish out, but I definitely want to plan a trip to Hawaii. 

I love the beach, so the beach is always on my list. We're going to visit a couple of our besties in Florida for New Year's. And that always brings me joy and happiness when I can put my toes in the sand and enjoy a sunrise or a sunset, for sure.

What are some NASFAA services or products that are most helpful to you? 

The first one that everyone says is AskRegs, right? Anytime you need clarification on an issue or a policy, or sometimes it's a slog to go through the Federal Student Aid Handbook, AskRegs is a great Cliff Notes version to at least get you going in the right direction. 

I definitely love all of the tools that we put together in the Advancing The Profession Toolkit and the Career Awareness Toolkit. Those are near and dear to my heart since I had a little bit to do with the beginning work of the Career Awareness Thought Force a few years ago. I would be remiss if I didn't say all the NASFAA webinars, and the tools and resources NASFAA has provided on FAFSA simplification, the FAFSA launch, the reconciliation bill, and more.  

What is the best professional advice you have been given?

This one actually goes all the way back to my college days, but I still have it hanging on my wall in my office. I was that kid who couldn't decide what I wanted to be when I grew up. Then I changed my major four or five times. My mom cut an article out of the newspaper and mailed it to me, and it had a quote in it from Abraham Lincoln: “Whatever you are, be a good one.”

The whole message in the article was it didn't matter what you were going to decide to major in in college — you should just decide that you're going to be amazing at whatever you do. That is what inspires me every day.

Leave your welcome messages, comments, and congratulations to Heidi in the comments section below!

Publication Date: 7/28/2025

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