OREGON RANKS SECOND IN FINANCIAL AID DENIAL FOR DRUGS

According To Report 190,000 Students Denied Aid Nationally Over Span
Of Five Years

Oregon ranked second highest out of the 50 states among financial
aid applicants denied because they responded yes to a conviction of
selling or possessing drugs.

On April 12, the U.S. Department of Education released the
state-by-state breakdown of the number of federal financial aid
applicants denied either part of or all of their financial aid
award. In 2005, when the drug-conviction amendment came up for
reconsideration, it was modified to deny aid only to those students
convicted of drug sales or possession while in college. Past
convictions will no longer be held against financial aid applicants.

Between August 2000 and August 2005, the years during which the
drug-conviction penalty was in effect, 3,637 applicants for federal
financial aid in Oregon were denied financial aid. A total of
997,710 Oregonians applied for federal financial aid, meaning that
0.36 percent of Oregon applicants lost aid because of drug convictions.

All told, nearly 190,000 students, or 0.25 percent of federal
financial aid applicants from U.S. states and territories, lost aid
because of their responses to the drug question while the
drug-conviction policy was in effect.

California and Washington also ranked high among the 50 states, with
the third and fourth highest drug-related aid denial rates. Indiana
had the highest percentage of applicants denied, 0.50 percent, of any state.

Although Portland State is the largest university in the state that
ranked second for drug-related aid denials, it is difficult to gauge
the extent to which Portland State students have been affected by
the law. The Office of Institutional Planning and Research
does measure the number of students denied federal financial aid,
but does not track the reasons for each denial and could not report
on how many Portland State students had lost aid because of drug convictions.

"I'm not aware of many people here being affected," said Kenneth
McGhee of the financial aid office. "Two or three years ago, one
person did come in concerned about the drug question, but that
person ended up being eligible for aid. Some people fill out the
form and get denied, so they either don't go, or they self-pay,
but they don't ask us directly. People don't usually show up [at
the financial aid office] with questions about the drug issue."

"A lot of people, myself included, feel that you shouldn't hold
people's pasts against them," McGhee said.

The Department of Education released the numbers after legal
wrangling with the nonprofit group Students for Sensible Drug Policy
(SSDP), represented by Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy
organization. In 2004, SSDP filed a Freedom of Information Act
request for the figures, which the department refused on the grounds
that the information would serve the commercial interests of those
who would benefit from the legalization of drugs. The department
attempted to charge SSDP a fee of $4,000 for the data, but backed
down in order to avoid a court battle when SSDP sued.

The drug-conviction financial aid penalty came into being as a 1998
House amendment to the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act,
which was first enacted in 1965 to provide federal financial aid for
college students. The amendment denied federal financial aid to
anyone who had ever been convicted of possessing or selling drugs.

During the 2000-01 school year, the first year the drug-conviction
question appeared on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid
(FAFSA), the Clinton administration approved aid for the nearly
300,000 applicants who did not answer the question.

The following year, however, the Bush administration reversed this
policy, making students who did not answer the question subject to
the same follow-up questionnaire and possible denial as those who
answered yes.

The Department of Education has no way of verifying most students'
responses to the FAFSA drug question. The only applicants whose
records they can crosscheck are those with federal arrest records,
which make up a very small percentage of total drug convictions in
the United States.

The numbers released by the Department of Education last Wednesday
reflect the percentage of applicants in Oregon and other states who
were denied aid because they admitted to having drug convictions on
the FAFSA, not the actual percentage of applicants who had drug
convictions in their past.