Officials with Iowa College Aid say they’ve expanded their efforts to increase college access. The new Course to College program is a partnership with Iowa high schools to guide students toward college enrollment. The components are:

Early Awareness: Helping students understand that college is a realistic goal by explaining the benefits of a college degree and the sources of help available.

College Application Campaign: Encouraging high school seniors to apply to at least one college, often with the support of school staff during school hours.

FAFSA Completion Initiative: Emphasizing the importance of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid as the gateway to most financial aid for college, and providing staff support during school hours to file the application.

College Decision Day: Holding school and community events to celebrate high school seniors who have chosen to continue their education.

Summer Transition: Ensuring that students who intend to go to college complete the necessary steps to get there, such as accepting a financial aid package, making required deposits, attending orientation, securing housing and enrolling in fall courses.

The Course to College program expands on Iowa College Aid’s former 3-Step Process, which covered the middle three steps. Participating schools receive free training, planning guides, posters and other print materials. Schools can also learn which students have filed a FAFSA.

Iowa College Aid also reminds prospective college students that it’s not too late to enroll for this fall. The FAFSA cycle is open through the 2017-18 academic year, and some colleges offer rolling deadlines—responding to applications as they come in. Students who are considering enrolling in college this fall can order a free student guide from Iowa College Aid, Your Course to College, either in print or via download.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) – An Iowa woman has been imprisoned for duping dozens of people into buying nonexistent tickets to the Super Bowl and other big events. The Sioux City Journal reports Ranae Van Roekel, of Boyden, was sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court in Sioux City to 51 months. The judge also ordered her to pay nearly $468,000 in restitution. Van Roekel had pleaded guilty to mail and income tax fraud.

Prosecutors say Van Roekel was a self-employed ticket broker who ran the business Get ’em Now Tickets from January 2008 to June 2012. Victims say she falsely claimed to have personal relationships and ties to events that gave her an inside track for deeply discounted tickets, hotel rooms and VIP passes.

Two Union County residents were arrested on Theft charges early this (Friday) morning. According to the Creston Police Department, 19-year old Xavier Lee Long and 26-year old Mark Allen Steinback, both of Creston, were arrested at around 1:30-a.m. at the Creston Wal-Mart Store on charges of Theft in the 2nd Degree. Both men were being held in the Union County Jail on $5,000 bond, each.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – A Nebraska filmmaker caught up in Iowa’s film tax credits scandal has been acquitted at his third trial. The Des Moines Register reports jurors found Dennis Brouse not guilty Thursday of fraudulent practice. He’d been convicted at two previous trials, but the Iowa Appeals Court overturned both convictions, once because of issues with evidence, once because of faulty jury instruction.

Brouse made public television programs about horse training that aired in Nebraska. He moved his company to Iowa to take advantage of generous tax credits. Iowa suspended the credits program after auditors discovered that $26 million in credits were improperly issued.

Prosecutors accused Brouse of buying a trailer for $10,500, but reporting that it cost twice that much so he could inflate his credits.

Under current law, licensed teachers, administrators and coaches can be charged with sexual exploitation by a school employee if they’re suspected of inappropriate contact with an Iowa student. A new law the governor approved yesterday (Thursday) expands the list of people who could be charged with this crime to “non-licensed” school employees like cooks, custodians, bus drivers and volunteers who oversee students. Representative Megan Jones of Sioux Rapids has been trying to pass this legislation for a few years.

“Many of you have reached out to me in one way or another and said that you had a similar issue in your district and I just appreciate the thoughtful, hard consideration you put into this bill so that we can make the children of Iowa safer,” Jones said during House consideration of the bill last month. Those found guilty of the crime of sexual exploitation by a school employee can be sentenced to up to two years in prison.

Three years ago lawmakers adjusted the law so prosecutors could charge COACHES with the crime of sexual exploitation of a student. Legislators acted after the Iowa Supreme Court tossed out a conviction against an assistant basketball coach for having sex with a 16-year-old student. The court ruled the 36-year-old coach did not fall under the law forbidding sexual exploitation of students because he did not have a teaching license. His main job was at a manufacturing plant.

(Radio Iowa)

An Iowa lawmaker says it was a “terrible, horrible mistake” that a man convicted in connection with his wife’s death was able to collect on her life insurance policy — and a new state law will ensure it won’t happen again. Representative Marti Anderson of Des Moines was director of the Iowa Crime Victim Assistance Division seven years ago when Bridgett Wirtjes, of Manly died.

“She had cuts on her nose and on her knees, blunt force injuries and I’m not going to tell you about the rest,” Anderson said. It HAS been illegal in Iowa for people to collect the life insurance benefits of someone they’ve been convicted of MURDERING, but Tyler Wirtjes and two others were convicted of sexually assaulting his unconscious wife, who died soon after the incident.

“He was found guilty of two, third-degree sexual assaults because they couldn’t really determine what the exact cause of her death was,” Anderson said. “But when this happened, her kids were sleeping in the next room. His kids were sleeping in the house when he did this to his wife.” Wirtjes, who took photos of the assault with his cell phone, successfully filed a claim on his dead wife’s life insurance policy. Her parents went to court, but lost.

“This insurance was a policy that they had bought for her when she was four years old and they had paid for,” Anderson says, “but the man who contributed to her death…he got the insurance.” The governor signed a bill into law Wednesday that now bars people like Wirtjes who are convicted of a felony like sexual assault from collecting on the life insurance policies of their victims. Those convicted of other felonies, like kidnapping and human trafficking, also will be prohibited now from being the beneficiary of their victim’s life insurance.

(Radio Iowa)