THE WAR ON DRUGS, VIA FAFSA

Group Hopes Congress Will Finally Ditch Financial Aid
Question

Since 1998, a lone question tucked away on the government's Free
Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form has stopped at least
200,000 potential college students from receiving financial aid,
according to the U.S. Department of Education. That was the year that
Congress passed the Higher Education Act Aid Elimination Policy,
adding a new FASFA question: "Has the student ever been convicted of
possessing or selling illegal drugs?" Now a movement is growing to
eliminate the question altogether.

The Higher Education Act of 1998 is up for reauthorization this year,
and its opponents see an opportunity to get rid of the one question
that they say is counterproductive in the worst way.

"Kicking people out of school and denying them an education, that's
just going to increase drug abuse," says Bill Piper, director of
national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance. "It's certainly not
going to decrease it." The question originally denied federal aid for
college to anyone convicted on a drug offense, including possession.

"The Republican Congress was doing a string of punitive measures,"
says Piper. "There was a ban on people with drug convictions from
getting Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. There were some bans
on getting public housing. It was part of a larger effort to be
punitive and show that you're tough on drugs, when you're actually
being stupid on drugs."

In 2006, the policy was changed to eliminate the retroactive measure;
now anyone convicted of a drug offense while receiving federal aid
will lose their aid. A first conviction of drug possession denies a
student federal aid for a year. A second conviction drops aid for two
years, a third, indefinitely. A first conviction for sales denies aid
for two years. A second denies aid indefinitely.

The retroactive measure was repealed after it faced harsh criticism
from those who argued that maybe, just maybe, denying folks an
education wasn't the best way to curtail drug use. The actual reason
the retroactive measure was repealed is a little hazy.

"Congressman Mark Souder [R-Indiana], who wrote and championed this
policy back in 1998, had been claiming for years that the Clinton
Administration had been misinterpreting it and that he never meant for
people to be punished for things that they did in the past," says Tom
Angell, government relations director for Students for Sensible Drug
Policy (SSDP). "We don't necessarily believe that. We think once he
started to see some of the criticism, he took a step or two back."

Piper is a bit more blunt: "He either passes laws, then backtracks and
doesn't want to admit it. Or whoever is writing his legislation is an
idiot."

Angell says that with the shift in power from the 2006 elections,
there is a much greater chance that the House will finally pass a bill
taking out the drug-offense question altogether. In April, SSDP sent a
letter to Congress asking it to repeal the policy. It was signed by
over 350 national and local organizations, including the American
Council on Education and the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People.