Dual Enrollment in Nebraska: the law behind it

The statute

Neb. Rev. Stat. § 85-2103

Access College Early Scholarship Program established .

Three sentences that create the only statewide dual enrollment money in Nebraska. The program exists to give financial assistance to low-income students for courses taken for credit at a qualified postsecondary institution while still enrolled in high school, and the Coordinating Commission for Postsecondary Education administers it. Nothing here creates a program of courses or obliges a school or a college to offer one, which is the reason a Nebraska family gets a different answer in one district than in the next.

Neb. Rev. Stat. § 85-2104

Student eligibility and priority .

The income gate, written as a list of programs a family may already be in. A student qualifies if the student or a parent or guardian is eligible for Supplemental Security Income, SNAP benefits, free or reduced price lunch, aid to families with dependent children, or WIC. A student or parent who has experienced an extreme hardship also qualifies. A third route, funded only after the first two are met, covers up to $250 a term for a course in a career plan of study where household income is at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level.

Neb. Rev. Stat. § 85-2105

Application, award amount, and institution reporting .

The paperwork and the arithmetic. A student applies on a Commission form giving the high school, grade level, grade point average, and the institution, and the school official who verifies eligibility has 15 days to forward it. The award equals the lesser of the tuition and mandatory fees the student actually accrues after any institutional discount, or what the same number of credit hours would cost a full-time resident undergraduate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The institution reports the grade or the failure to complete within 30 days of the end of the course.

The administrative rule

Title 281 NAC Chapter 6

Access College Early Scholarship Program Act rules .

The Commission’s rule under sections 85-1411, 85-1412, and 85-2108, and the only administrative rule Nebraska has written for any part of dual enrollment. It carries the application procedure and the term-by-term timing, including that the Commission sets the date each term’s application window opens. Because the scholarship is awarded term by term rather than for a year, a family that applied in the fall applies again in the spring.

Who pays, and under what authority

Access College Early Scholarship Program

Coordinating Commission for Postsecondary Education, ACE .

What the scholarship covers and what it leaves behind, stated by the agency that pays it. ACE pays tuition and mandatory fees and sends the money to the college rather than to the family. Matriculation fees, course-specific fees, books, other supplies, and background checks stay with the student, and on a health or trades course those can run past the tuition. The page also carries the term deadlines a family has to work back from.

Agency guidance

Participating institutions

CCPE, institutions participating in ACE .

The list that decides whether the scholarship reaches a particular course. ACE follows the college, so a student at a high school partnered with a college that is not on this list gets no state help even after qualifying on income. Checking the list before choosing between two partner colleges is worth the five minutes.

How it got here

The Legislature created the Access College Early Scholarship Program in 2007, in Laws 2007, LB 192. An earlier set of sections at 85-2201 through 85-2208 was repealed in 2012 by LB 946, so a citation to section 85-2202 points at a repealed provision rather than at the current act.

Who administers it

These are the offices that answer a question about Nebraska law rather than about one school or one campus. A district and a college can both be wrong about a state rule, and these pages are where the state's own position is published.

• Coordinating Commission for Postsecondary Education · Administers the scholarship and writes the rule under it.
• CCPE, ACE program overview · The annual figures on awards, students, and participating high schools.
• CCPE, participating institutions · The colleges at which the scholarship can be used.

Frequently asked

Is there a Nebraska statute that creates dual enrollment?

No. Chapter 85 carries the Access College Early Scholarship Act and the community college statutes, and neither creates a dual enrollment program or sets terms for one. What a course costs and who may take it come from the partnering college.

Who qualifies for the ACE scholarship?

Section 85-2104 qualifies a student whose family receives SSI, SNAP, free or reduced price lunch, aid to families with dependent children, or WIC, or who has experienced an extreme hardship. A third route covers up to $250 a term for a career plan of study course at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level.

How much does ACE pay?

Section 85-2105 sets the award at the lesser of the tuition and mandatory fees actually accrued after any institutional discount, or what the same credit hours would cost a full-time resident undergraduate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Does ACE cover books and course fees?

No. The Commission states that matriculation fees, course-specific fees, books, other supplies, and background checks stay with the student. On a nursing or welding course those can exceed the tuition the scholarship pays.