DRUG BUSTS HIT STUDENTS HARD

Financial Aid Loss Under Review

WASHINGTON - When 20-year-old Nathan Bush was pulled over in Kenosha
last October with drug paraphernalia plainly visible in his car, he
lost his driver's license - and tens of thousands of dollars in financial aid.

Bush, an incoming junior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said
he could have been slapped with the far more serious charge of
possession of marijuana, but instead had all of his federal dollars
taken away in courtroom negotiations.

"Of course, I can't pick up that kind of slack," Bush said, adding
that state aid covers only about half of the $15,000 a year he pays
for his education. "So it all just falls on my parents, which I'm not
proud of. But I just can't come up with that kind of money."

According to Students for a Sensible Drug Policy, the federal
government since 1998 has refused educational aid to more than
160,000 students like Bush, including many who were convicted of
drug-related offenses before their initial application for aid.

As part of this year's reauthorization of the Higher Education Act,
which a congressional committee is expected to consider this week,
the so-called "retroactivity clause" could be repealed - in other
words, the government could no longer legally withhold tuition
assistance from students who were convicted of drug-related offenses
before they filed their first application.

Tom Angell of SSDP said the measure is inadequate and called for
broader legislation that would loosen the restrictions on students,
like Bush, who are convicted while in school.

"While we welcome the change and think that it will help many
students, there are still others who will be losing their aid,"
Angell said. "It's sort of like putting a Band-Aid on a gaping wound."

Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, is one of 68 co-sponsors of a bill
supported by the student group that would abolish the government's
right to deny financial aid based on drug-related offenses, even if a
student is convicted while enrolled in college.

Baldwin called the current law "incredibly inconsistent" because it
targets even the most casual of drug users while ignoring convictions
for violent crime.

"There's no prohibition on somebody who has been convicted of rape or
murder," Baldwin said. "In practice, this is most likely to affect
somebody who had one instance of illegal behavior during their youth."

Margaret Reiter, president of the UW-Madison chapter of the student
group, added that many students probably don't report drug
convictions because they doubt the Department of Education will
investigate their past.

"It's only the honest students who are going to get punished," Reiter
said. "They think it would be a huge waste of time and money for the
government to go checking them out."

The original law that allowed the Department of Education to "suspend
eligibility for drug-related offenses" was passed seven years ago as
part of the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, which was
originally crafted in 1965 to facilitate college education for
low-income and minority students.

Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., introduced the drug-related provision.
Souder spokesman Martin Green said the logic behind the legislation
is quite simple.

"Students who receive taxpayer dollars to go to college are not
making the most of it by taking drugs," Green said. "It's one thing
if they're paying for their education or if their parents are paying
for it, but it's unfair to ask taxpayers to foot the bill for a
student with a drug habit."

The bill was also designed, Green said, as a preventative measure
under the assumption that students hoping to receive financial aid
would be less likely to use and sell drugs.

Angell takes issue with this reasoning, arguing that "the provision
is only a deterrent to recovery and education."

Souder and Angell agree, however, on one surprising point. Green said
Souder, as an Evangelical Christian who believes strongly in
redemption, never intended for the bill to behave retroactively and
neither did the two chambers of Congress when they passed it. That
interpretation of the enforcement plan was made, he said, by the
Clinton administration just before the bill was signed into law.

"Congressman Souder was outraged, of course, when the enforcement
regulations were released, and he's been working ever since then to
overturn that provision," Green said. "He's pleased that he has
bipartisan support to restore the original intent of Congress."

Under the original bill, a student convicted of a drug-related crime
was disqualified for financial aid from the date of conviction until
a date determined based on number of prior convictions and nature of
the crime. A student convicted of possession of a controlled
substance for the first time, for example, loses eligibility for one
year while a student caught selling for the second time is
disqualified indefinitely.

Green said the language was not intended to exclude students applying
for financial aid after their convictions, regardless of how recently
they were in court.

But like Angell, Bush said he feels "hurt" by the measure as a whole
and will continue to oppose it, whether or not it behaves retroactively.

"I just feel like there's no compassion in that law," Bush said.
"It's just one strike and you're out. There are a lot of smart kids
who smoke marijuana at Madison, and they're going to lose their money
just for that? It really hurts me."

Bush, who graduated high school in Paddock Lake with a 3.8 GPA and
considers himself a good student as a kinesiology and nutritional
science major, said he attends weekly drug court and counseling
sessions and is now drug free. He added that he is not sure when he
will regain his financial aid but emphasized that he is eager to. He
feels guilty, he said, because his parents already paid his legal
bills on top of financing his sister's college education.

"I'll just keep applying every year and hoping," Bush said.