Students attending private, not-for-profit colleges or universities in Nebraska could receive additional financial aid under a bill heard by the Education Committee March 3.<\/p>\n
LB401, introduced by Seward Sen. Mark Kolterman, would provide grants to students attending an eligible institution and demonstrating significant financial need. Kolterman said that many students looking for a more personalized experience end up leaving the state for college.<\/p>\n
\u201cNebraska as a state has not provided significant resources for students who prefer a smaller, more personal college experience,\u201d he said. \u201c[LB401] gives students a real choice about where to continue their college education.\u201d<\/p>\n
The grants would be available to students in their freshman and sophomore years and who maintain minimum educational standards. Full-time students would receive priority, but grants also would be available to part-time students who meet eligibility requirements.<\/p>\n
Grants distributed under the bill could not exceed the average taxpayer subsidy provided for instruction of an undergraduate student at a four-year public college or university.<\/p>\n
College of Saint Mary President Maryanne Stevens spoke in favor of the bill. She said that the bill would encourage more first generation college students to attend Nebraska institutions.<\/p>\n
\u201cOften it\u2019s these students that thrive in smaller environments that most of the private, not-for-profit schools offer,\u201d she said. \u201cThis would be an important tool for our colleges to use in helping financially needy students attend college.\u201d<\/p>\n
Preston Harris also spoke in favor of the bill, citing his experience as a former student at Concordia University.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was very sheltered as a kid and I needed a smaller environment to thrive in my education,\u201d he said. \u201cUnfortunately, I had to work after football games to pay for my tuition. I hated that because I wasn\u2019t able to focus on my school work like I wanted to.\u201d<\/p>\n
No one testified in opposition to the bill and the committee took no immediate action on it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Students attending private, not-for-profit colleges or universities in Nebraska could receive additional financial aid under a bill heard by the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[143],"class_list":["post-16647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","tag-sen-mark-kolterman"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16647"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16648,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16647\/revisions\/16648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}