{"id":40860,"date":"2026-04-09T15:01:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T21:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=40860"},"modified":"2026-04-09T15:01:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T21:01:24","slug":"nest-program-expanded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=40860","title":{"rendered":"NEST program expanded"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Eligible uses of Nebraska educational savings plan trust accounts were expanded under a bill passed April 9.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_37095\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-37095\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"37095\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?attachment_id=37095\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/SenSorrentino_inline.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"200,300\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;8&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;Office of University Communication&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;Canon EOS R5&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Tony Sorrentino, District 39. Nebraska Legislature - 2025 Incoming Senators. November 20, 2024. Photo by Craig Chandler \/ University Communication.&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1729274578&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;\\u00a9 2019, The Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska. All rights reserved.&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;153&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;100&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.00625&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Mark Wilkins Lab&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"SenSorrentino_inline\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Sen. Tony Sorrentino&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/SenSorrentino_inline.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/SenSorrentino_inline.jpg\" class=\"size-full wp-image-37095\" src=\"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/SenSorrentino_inline.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-37095\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sen. Tony Sorrentino<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Under LB748, introduced by Elkhorn Sen. Tony Sorrentino, families may use NEST accounts for education-related expenses beyond K-12 and postsecondary tuition, including books, tutoring and online instructional materials, beginning Jan. 1, 2029.<\/p>\n<p>The bill also increases the annual withdrawal cap from $10,000 to $20,000 and expands eligible uses to qualified postsecondary credentialing programs, such as career and technical certifications.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, the measure permits the Nebraska State Treasurer\u2019s Office to enter agreements with recognized postsecondary credentialing programs, excluding those related to investment of program funds, and to make payments directly to those programs on behalf of beneficiaries.<\/p>\n<p>The bill passed on a 46-3 vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eligible uses of Nebraska educational savings plan trust accounts were expanded under a bill passed April 9. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36724,"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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[309],"class_list":["post-40860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","tag-sen-tony-sorrentino"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/UpdateBlogPhoto-3.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40860","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=40860"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40862,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40860\/revisions\/40862"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}