PROVISION PREVENTS STUDENTS FROM AID

Drug Convictions Affect Thousands

Drug convictions may cost students more than a clean criminal record;
they could cost them their financial aid.

Thousands of Louisiana students have been denied federal financial
aid because of drug convictions, according to statistics released by
Students for Sensible Drug Policy.

Since the enactment of the Higher Education Act Drug Provision
Penalty in 1998, a total of 189,065 students nationwide have been denied aid.

Of the 1,333,912 Louisiana applicants, 2,890 students were denied
aid. Louisiana had 0.22 percent of applicants denied, which is
slightly lower than the national average of 0.25 percent.

Indiana had the highest percentage of applicants denied aid with 0.50
percent and Vermont had the lowest with only 204 of their 172,625
applicants denied, 0.12 percent.

Ricardo Jeffries, mass communication senior and former president of
Cannabis Action Network, said he is active with SSDP.

"The drug provision is probably one of the worst injustices we put on
young people and drug criminals," Jeffries said.

SSDP received the complete state-by-state breakdown of the number of
students who were denied federal financial aid because of drug
convictions from the Department of Education on April 12.

Karen Malovrh, National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
chapter coordinator, said NORML agrees with SSDP's initiatives to
change the Aid Elimination Penalty.

"The numbers are really interesting because they show that there are
many students out there who are losing out because they made a
mistake," Malovrh said.

As part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit settlement, the
Department of Education agreed to give SSDP the data and waive a
$4,100 fee they tried to charge SSDP for the information.

As reported in an April 7 Daily Reveille article, Tom Angell,
campaigns director for SSDP, said the organization was originally
given incomplete data and was waiting for the complete set before
releasing the statistics.

Angell said the data mix-up happened because the Department of
Education turned over the job of compiling the breakdown to a
contractor who used a different formula.

According to the SSDP's state-by-state report, the Department of
Education's original numbers were incorrect because they assumed
students were ineligible by looking at the drug question on the Free
Application for Federal Student Aid.

Stephanie Babyak, spokeswoman for the Department of Education, said
the discrepancy in the numbers happened because of the organization
used different criterium used between the contractor and
monthly/end-of-year sheets.

"It wasn't very clear what the discrepancy was, but it seems the
information is right now," Angell said.