DRUG CONVICTIONS STILL BAR FEDERAL LOANS TO STUDENTS

Efforts to ease a ban on federal financial aid for college students with
drug convictions have reached an impasse.

So far this school year, more than 43,000 would-be college students face
the possible denial of financial aid under a law passed in 1998.

The chief lobbying group for colleges and universities would like the ban
repealed, as would students on nearly 200 campuses who have organized to
fight it.

Federal officials said they had hoped to ease the ban through
administrative action but could not find a way.

They said it is up to Congress instead to amend the law.

"We looked in every nook and cranny," Education Department spokeswoman
Lindsey Kozberg said.

The department interprets the law as indicating that anyone with a prior
drug conviction may be ineligible for aid.

But Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., the author of the law, said the Bush
administration is being tougher on applicants than he intended.

He said he wanted the ban to apply only to students already getting federal
aid when convicted.

Souder's staff met repeatedly this year with the Education Department to
try to bring enforcement in line with what he says Congress intended.
Recently, the government told Souder it couldn't do it.

In reply, the congressman accused the Bush administration of a "simply
shocking" defiance of Congress and threatened to hold hearings.

Kozberg said the department is ready to help Souder fashion a change he can
give to Congress.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., already has introduced repeal legislation. But
when Congress might take up the issue is unclear, with the country engulfed
in a war.

The ban involves a small fraction of the more than 10 million people who
annually fill out applications.