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National Campaign to Repeal College Aid Drug Law Picks Up Steam
A supposedly ‘anti-drug’ component of the Higher Education Act faces tough opposition this year from a movement to repeal the rule denying federal financial aid to people convicted of any drug crime.
Ron Chepesiuk | The NewStandard | 03/30/2005

Mar 30 - The campaign to repeal a controversial law ostensibly designed to discourage drug use among young people by denying financial aid to anyone convicted of drug offenses is gaining momentum. Opponents of the little known provision in the federal Higher Education Act (HEA) say they are hopeful that they can repeal the law during this congressional session.

Earlier this month, Representative Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts), with the support of over fifty members of Congress, reintroduced the Removing Impediments to Students’ Education Act (H.R. 1184), also known as the RISE Act. If enacted, the measure will repeal the Higher Education Act’s drug law, which has denied financial aid to at least 660,500 people with prior drug convictions.

The anti-drug provision has penalized thousands of students, many who are poor and from minority populations.

More than 200 organizations and 115 university and college student governments nationwide have called on Congress to repeal the bill, and the opposition is mounting.

"We will be pushing hard this legislative session to get Congress to act," said Chris Mulligan, campaign director of the Coalition for Higher Education Act Reform (CHEAR), a group spearheading the campaign. "It’s been a real challenge because the campaign deals with drugs. If the word "drugs’ wasn’t in the [HEA] provision, it would have been repealed long ago."

The HEA’s drug component, enacted in 1998, denies financial aid to anyone convicted of a state or federal drug offense. Under the law, a person convicted of a drug offense for the first time is denied financial aide for one year, the second offense bans the student from aid for two years, and a third conviction carries an indefinite suspension. Prospective students convicted of selling drugs are denied federal aid for two years for the first offense and are slapped with an indefinite suspension for a second.

Even Mark Souder, the Indiana Republican who wrote the embattled measure, concedes that it has had unintended consequences. "This provision was clearly meant to apply only to students convicted of drug crimes while receiving financial aid, not to applicants who may have had drug convictions in years past," Souder has told the press.

But the anti-drug provision has penalized thousands of students, many who are poor and from minority populations, especially with arrests for nonviolent marijuana possession on the rise. According to the FBI, law enforcement agencies arrested a record 755,186 people in 2003 for marijuana related offenses, nearly 662,886 of them for possession.

Marisa Garcia is one of those statistics. In 2000, one day before her 19th birthday, police arrested Garcia for possession of a pipe containing marijuana residue. "It was the first time I was in trouble and I didn’t know what to do," Garcia recalled. "I plead guilty and paid a $400 fine."

Erecting more barriers for low-income people wanting to attend college reinforces the country’s income disparities

Garcia had applied for financial aid, but a couple of months after her conviction, the application form was returned. "My mom had filled out the form, and she didn’t answer one question: do you have a drug conviction?" Garcia recalled. "I called the [Department of Education] and learned that I couldn’t get aid because of my prior drug conviction. I feel that I’ve paid twice for my mistake."

Today, Garcia is a junior and sociology major at the University of California at Fullerton. "The person who wrote the law was trying to show how tough he was on drugs, but it’s poorly written," Garcia said. "It doesn’t deter someone from taking drugs, but it does deter thousands of people from getting an education.’

According to Education Department statistics analyzed by CHEAR, the HEA provision has denied financial aid to approximately160,500 applicants, but there is no way to measure how many others with drug convictions have not bothered to complete the financial aid form, advised by guidance counselors that they are ineligible for federal assistance.

Advocates for students denied financial aid point out that erecting more barriers for low-income people wanting to attend college reinforces the country’s income disparities and perpetuates the systems that target low-income people and minorities for drug arrests in the first place.

Ironically, Congress is moving to re-authorize the Specter education grants program (named for Senator Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania), which are awarded to inmates under age 25 who are eligible for parole within five years.

"The federal government is giving financial aid to incarcerated young people, but if you are a drug offender who isn’t in prison, but [who] has paid your debt to society, you aren’t eligible for financial aid," Mulligan of CHEAR told The NewStandard . "Even though everyone agrees that the Specter grants are a good thing, the [HEA provision] doesn’t make sense."

Some state legislators are also weighing in. Last year, the Delaware General Assembly passed a resolution calling on the US Congress to repeal the HEA drug crime provision. In early 2005, the Arizona General Assembly introduced a resolution that, if enacted, would also call on Congress to repeal the provision. That resolution is expected to come to a vote soon. CHEAR has urged their supporters in Arizona to contact their elected state officials to express their support for the measure.

Meanwhile, on March 2, Rhode Island state legislators introduced a bill in the General Assembly that would help students affected by the federal measure. If passed into law, the Rhode Island Higher Education Act of 2005 would fully compensate any student who has lost financial aid due to a prior drug conviction for the amount of money they would have received.

"The HEA anti-drug provision wrongfully denies equal opportunity for education to young people who have made mistakes in the past," said State Representative Joseph Almeida, the Rhode Island bill’s sponsor. "We should let these kids move on with their lives instead of holding their mistakes against them by denying financial aid."

Advocates for the RISE bill to repeal the HEA provision are encouraged by a recent initiative of the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, a congressionally appointed committee that advises lawmakers on higher education student aid policy. "We hope Congress follows the Committee’s lead," commented Tom Angel, communications director for the Washington DC-based Students for Sensible Drug Policy.

Still, no one expects the fight to repeal the law to be without obstacles, given the political implications of the issue. Mulligan said that while there are no Republican co-sponsors to the RISE bill, there are several Republican lawmakers in both the House and Senate who might be sympathetic. "We just need to convince them that repealing this fundamentally flawed policy will not make them soft on drugs," he said.

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Burninbrooke

Erecting more barriers for low-income people wanting to attend college reinforces the country’s income disparities

Oh so that was the point of this stupid law, I knew it was something. Thank Lord this is becoming a major issue! Two years ago when this law had potential to affect me no one knew about it.

__________________
"We need to change our ethic and aspire to be more Canadian-like,"

"The majority of Americans - the ones who never elected you - are not fooled by your weapons of mass distraction."
Michael Moore

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." — George W. Bush Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004

Stephanie S.

Drug Financial-Aid Law Enforced
4/18/2001

Source
More students who have drug convictions will be denied federal financial aid now that the Bush administration has decided to enforce a law on the books since last July.

The Associated Press reported April 17 that Education Department officials say they will reject financial-aid to applicants who fail to answer a question about past drug convictions. In 1998, Congress passed a law saying that students with drug convictions would be denied federal aid.

After the law went into effect last July, however, the Clinton administration decided not to withhold support from applicants who didn't answer the question. As a result, during the 2000-01 aid cycle, 300,000 applicants who didn't answer the drug question still got aid, while 8,620 applicants who admitted to past convictions were denied assistance.

Of 4 million applications received so far in the current aid cycle, only 14,800 applicants have failed to answer the question, due to new instructions in the application form that say that answering is mandatory. About 27,000 applicants said they had a conviction, but about half of those were determined to be eligible for aid, anyway.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) has introduced legislation to repeal the law. Critics say that tying aid to drug convictions punishes only less-affluent students and encourages people to lie on their applications. Government officials admit they lack the ability to check the veracity of all 10 million applications they receive annually.

This has been going on four years now. Barney Frank has been down this road before with little success. He's tenacious, if nothing else! I wonder if he'll have any luck this time around.

peace

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"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." —George W. Bush, Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005 (Listen to audio)

killer12382

It made no sense to punish someone so severely for such a minor offence like possession of marijuana. Has anyone tried to overturn this based on being cruel and inhuman?

Bluee

Remember kids, kill your friends, don't smoke with them. At least that way the government can pay your way through CC after you've served your 25-to-life, also on the government's tab.

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Pessimism is being content when things go bad, while enjoying life when proven wrong.