Maybe you weren't asking the right people. But the fact is, Indiana law is different than Arkansas law in this respect - Indiana only requires that you reside in the precinct for at least 30 days, under IC §3-7-13-1(3), and has no exclusion for students or other temporary residents.
On the other hand, anyone presently in jail or otherwise lawfully detained, or anyone who's been convicted of and imprisoned for a crime regardless of whether or not it was a felony, is not eligible to register and vote under §3-7-13-4, unlike in some other states.
Would there be a big uproar if there was a prison voter registration drive that an Indiana judge ruled illegal? I doubt it. The law is the law, and if the legislators don't like it, they should just introduce a bill to change it.
I agree that there may be some special cases where a student legitimately can claim his domicile at the college address, and those should be addressed in court. I also agree that the students should be allowed to re-register at their proper domicile despite the deadlines.
But the bottom line is that someone really fouled up by registering them without consulting the law first.