COLLEGE DEGREE IS KEY TO EX-CONVICTS' REFORM

The American prison system will release more than 600,000 prisoners this
year --- and half will commit new crimes and be back in prison three years
from now. There is at least one proven way to break the cycle: Inmates who
earn college degrees tend to stay out of jail. But former offenders have
found it increasingly hard to educate themselves since Congress began to
cut them off from federal education aid in the 1990s.

Lawmakers may not be prepared to revisit the federal ban that made
convicted felons ineligible for Pell grants, the federal tuition aid aimed
primarily at poor and middle-income students. But the House of
Representatives is at least talking about changing the 1998 law under which
more than 140,000 students have been turned down for federal student loans
because of drug offenses, some of which are minor.

The law was not supposed to work this way. According to Rep. Mark Souder
(R-Ind.), who wrote the measure, it was aimed only at students who
committed drug crimes while receiving federal loans. But the law has
instead been applied to every applicant with a drug conviction, even if the
conviction was so minor as to carry no jail time, and even if it occurred
long before the student ever envisioned going to college. Souder has put
forth a revised version of the law that would return to his original intent.

That would be an improvement, but Congress should repeal this law instead
of just tinkering with it. College is the one sure way to get ex-convicts
back into the mainstream and keep them out of jail.