DISPUTE GROWS OVER BAN ON U.S. AID TO STUDENTS WITH DRUG CONVICTIONS

WASHINGTON - The law's author says the administration is being tougher
than Congress intended.

Efforts to ease a ban on federal financial aid for college students with
drug convictions have reached an impasse.

So far this school year, more than 43,000 would-be college students face
the possible denial of financial aid under a law enacted in 1998. The chief
lobbying group for colleges and universities would like the ban repealed,
as would students on almost 200 campuses who have organized to fight it.

Federal officials said they had hoped to ease the ban through
administrative action but could not find a way. They said it is up to
Congress instead to amend the law.

The department reads the law as saying anyone with a prior drug conviction
may be ineligible for aid. But Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., the author of the
law, said the administration was being tougher on applicants than he
intended. He said he wanted the ban to apply only to students already
getting federal aid when convicted.

Souder's staff met repeatedly this year with Education Department officials
to try to bring enforcement in line with what he says Congress intended.
Earlier this month, the government told Souder that it could not do it.

In reply, the congressman accused the administration of a "simply shocking"
defiance of Congress and threatened to hold oversight hearings.

Lindsey Kozberg, an Education Department spokeswoman, said the department
was ready to help Souder fashion a change that he could give to Congress.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., already has introduced repeal legislation. But
when Congress might take up the issue is unclear, especially with the
country engulfed in the war on terrorism.

The ban involves a small fraction of the more than 10 million people who
annually fill out the application for federal grants, work-study money or
U.S.-subsidized loans.