Nebraska
FAFSA delay continues as Nebraska students and colleges wait
The U.S. Department of Education aims to send completed 2024-25 Free Applications for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSAs, to colleges this month.
The FAFSA typically goes out in October, but for the 2024-25 form, there have been roadblocks due to needed changes from the FAFSA Simplification Act.
The completed FAFSAs were supposed to be sent to colleges in February. Then, the U.S. Department of Education discovered a calculation error that would have resulted in less aid for some students.
The department is hoping to correct that mistake and start sending completed forms to colleges in March.
Jodi Vanden Berge, the Kearney director of college planning and outreach services for EducationQuest, said not having those financial aid offers makes it hard for students to decide where to go for college.
“Some of those colleges need early decisions, you need to be doing housing deposits so that you’re guaranteed rooms, so there are a lot of factors that are affecting especially those seniors who are applying for the first time,” Vanden Berge said.
Another glitch students should watch out for is signatures dropping from their FAFSA. Vanden Berge said students will need to watch their messages to see if their signature didn’t go through. If a student needs to re-sign, it could take three to five days to have the signature process.
Vanden Berge said students should ensure they submit their FAFSA so it can be reviewed as soon as possible once the form is fixed. Outside of that, it’s a waiting game.
“There’s not a lot we can do. It’s kind of status quo at this point,” Vanden Berge said. “They’re in review, and we just have to hope that the federal government is able to get them processed in March. I know there’s a large amount of FAFSAs that have been submitted that are sitting there.”
According to the National College Attainment Network, 7,626 high school seniors in Nebraska have submitted the form as of Feb. 16. Last year, 12,111 had submitted the form by Feb. 16.
Vanden Berge said most colleges and scholarship organizations adjusted their deadlines to accommodate for the delay.
The future of data centers in Nebraska took center stage at a North Omaha town hall Thursday evening.
The event was hosted by State Sens. Terrell McKinney and Ashlei Spivey, who alongside Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh sponsored a bill in the Nebraska Legislature that looked to help regulate data centers.
Parts of their bill were adopted and passed in LB1010, which requires reports on annual power usage, water usage and ownership.
“Having this passed in a package showed a lot of bipartisan work,” Spivey told a crowd of attendees at Nelson Mandela Elementary School.
The proposed regulations were shaped in part by Bold Nebraska, an advocacy group focused on eminent domain and clean energy. Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party and founder of Bold Nebraska, said before the bill passed there were “zero laws on the books” to address a boom in data centers.
“If one is coming into the community, we wanted to make sure that there were some basic transparency things in place,” Kleeb said.
Political discussions around data centers heated up in recent months following reporting by the Flatwater Free Press that showed Google is considering a data center in Nebraska that could require more than three times the amount of power the entire city of Lincoln uses at peak demand in the summer.
The Nebraska Legislature recently passed another bill, LB1261, that allows private developers to build and own power plants to serve a large industrial customer, including data centers. That bill was proposed by the governor’s office and celebrated by Gov. Jim Pillen.
“Our state is once again taking a bold and strategic step – one that will create an environment that attracts business and multibillion dollar investment, while legally preserving Nebraska’s unique and consumer-friendly public power model,” Pillen said at the time.
At Thursday’s town hall, McKinney called LB1261 “the bogeyman bill.”
“It’s a bill that the governor pushed through the legislature to allow for data centers to create their own power,” McKinney said. “It’s a bill that I stood on the floor and said this is going to harm our communities.”
LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – Hundreds of people are without power in southeast Nebraska after a severe storm passed through Thursday morning.
The Lincoln Electric System outage map showed 115 customers without power across the city at 11:36 a.m.
Norris Public Power District’s outage map also shows 45 customers affected by the storm. As of 11:36 a.m., there were nine active outages.
According to the Nebraska Public Power District outage map, 657 customers were affected by the storm. Most of the affected customers were near Plattsmouth in southeast Nebraska. As of 11:37 a.m., 27 customers remain without power.
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Mandatory evacuations have been ordered near Crawford, including Fort Robinson State Park, as the South Fork Fire continues to spread in western Nebraska.
According to the City of Crawford, evacuations are currently underway for an area north of Crawford that includes the area south of Dodd Road, west of Dodd Road, and FF Street.
Fort Robinson has also been evacuated.
The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission said Fort Robinson State Park and Peterson Wildlife Management Area have been temporarily closed due to the fire.
The fire has burned approximately 9,000 acres and is currently 0% contained, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
Nebraska Game and Parks said the park and the WMA will remain closed until further notice to support firefighting operations and protect public safety.
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