DRUG CONVICTIONS COST ALMOST 7,000 STUDENTS ELIGIBILITY FOR AID

Almost 7,000 of the nine million students who applied for federal aid
for this fall are ineligible for some or all of the financial support
because of recent convictions for drug-related offenses, according to
the Education Department.

Aides to Rep. Mark E. Souder, Republican of Indiana, who drafted the
legislation barring aid to students with drug convictions, said he
was surprised that the number was so low. But Education Department
officials said the statistics matched their expectations.

"Justice Department figures tell us that roughly 1 percent of the
U.S. population have a drug conviction, so it would follow roughly
that 1 percent of the people who apply for aid would have a drug
conviction to report," said Karen Freeman, a spokeswoman for the
Education Department's Office of Student Financial Assistance
Programs.

The 2000-1 academic year is the first in which students with
drug-related convictions can become ineligible for federal aid. The
law denies aid to students recently convicted in state or federal
court of possessing or selling illicit drugs.

About 10 million students apply for federal aid each year; as of
October 15, the Education Department had processed about 8.6 million
applications for this year.

Department statistics show that under the drug-conviction provision,
1,311 applicants have been ruled ineligible for aid, and an
additional 5,617 applicants must complete a waiting period before
they become eligible. Applicants can lose all or some of their
federal aid in a given academic year, depending on the date of
conviction, when the suspension begins. Any students convicted in
December, for example, could regain eligibility for the second
semester of the last year of the suspension.

Eligibility may be suspended for one year for a first conviction on a
drug-possession charge; two years for a second conviction; and
indefinitely for a third. A student can regain eligibility by
completing a drug-rehabilitation program or by winning a reversal of
the conviction or having it set aside.

Marisa Garcia, a freshman at California State University at
Fullerton, lost part of her financial aid after she was convicted of
misdemeanor possession of marijuana in March. She paid a $415 fine
after being ticketed for the offense in January. Before that, she
said, "I'd never gotten in any sort of trouble at all."

"I got my punishment, I got my fine, and then I found out they're
probably going to take away my aid," Ms. Garcia said. "Without that
financial aid, I can't afford to go to school."

While she considered enrolling in a rehabilitation program, Ms.
Garcia said she could not afford the fee. Instead, she has sought
other forms of financial aid and has doubled the number of hours she
works at a part-time job.

"Drug programs aren't really an option for people," Ms. Garcia said.
"If they can't afford to put themselves through school on their own,
I doubt they can afford a drug-rehab program that costs hundreds of
dollars."

David Borden, executive director of the Drug Reform Coordination
Network, which works to liberalize drug-sentencing rules and other
drug policies, said he believes that "the vast majority of students"
with drug convictions have elected not to answer the drug question on
the Free Application for Student Aid.

"The only students who are losing aid now are the students who told
the complete truth and volunteered the information," he said.

Nearly 275,000 applicants have yet to answer whether they have ever
been convicted of a drug offense, despite being pressed by the
Education Department to respond.

At first, more than 790,000 applicants failed to answer the question.
Department officials allowed aid administrators to award aid this
year to those who left the question blank, but warned those students
to alert the department to any drug convictions, or else risk
penalties for lying on their forms.

"We determined early on that many people who don't answer the
question feel it doesn't pertain to them, or don't understand the
question or forget to answer it," said Ms. Freeman, the department
spokeswoman.

The Education Department has reworded the question for next year's
aid application. The new yes-or-no entry states, "Do not leave this
question blank."

Susan D. Little, associate director of operations for student
financial aid at the University of Georgia, called the new format a
welcome change. "We certainly expect the accuracy of the answers to
increase," she said.

Groups including the Drug Reform Coordination Network and the
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws oppose the
drug provision and advise students on how to respond to the question.

But officials of both groups say they don't tell students to leave
any section of the application blank.

"Most of these students lament that they are being singled out in a
feckless war on some drugs," said Allen F. St. Pierre, executive
director of the NORML Foundation. "These same students could
binge-drink to death or smoke themselves blue in the face with
tobacco, and yet they would not be denied a student loan for engaging
in that kind of activity."

Congress imposed the drug-conviction provision in renewing the Higher
Education Act in 1998.