Pubdate: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 Source: Kentucky Post (KY) Copyright: 2001 Kentucky Post Contact: http://www.kypost.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/661 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hea.htm (Higher Education Act) FLAWED AND UNFAIR There's no doubt that the scourge of illegal drugs is destroying both people and communities, fueling crime and violence, filling our court dockets and prisons and sapping all of society. There are laws to catch, punish and, hopefully, rehabilitate those who use and abuse drugs. But one law that bans federal college financial aid to applicants with drug convictions is an unfair punishment that keeps those with drugs in their past from improving themselves. That ban could deny more than 34,000 people the loans and grants they need to get an education in the coming school year - more than triple those turned away in 2000-01. Even the congressman who authored the provision thinks the ban on college aid has gone too far. U.S. Rep. Mark Souder, an Indiana Republican, intended that his ban only apply to students who were convicted while receiving aid. First-time applicants weren't supposed to fall under it. That's not the way it has worked out. Beginning with the Clinton administration and continuing - even intensifying - under President Bush, education officials denied grants and rejected loans not only to students who, while receiving aid, were charged and convicted of drug activity but also to people with previous convictions. Anyone who has been convicted of selling or possessing drugs is denied federal grants, work-study money and U.S.-backed and subsidized student loans, like the Stafford loans used by so many to go to college. For those convicted of a first drug-possession offense, ineligibility lasts a year after conviction. For a second offense, it's two years. More convictions bar aid indefinitely, though exemption is granted to offenders who subsequently enroll in a treatment program. Not surprisingly, the law is tougher on those who sell drugs. A single drug sale conviction means aid ineligibility for two years; more than that and the ban is indefinite. The overall law raises an issue of fundamental fairness because it punishes people a second time who've accepted their punishment and paid their debt to society. It holds back the very people we, as a society, say need to better themselves through education so they won't fall back into drugs. What happened to the country of the second chance? And what about proportionality? This law treats drug offenses far differently than any other crime. There's no ban for those who've robbed, raped or even murdered. Under this law, an 18-year-old arrested and convicted on charges of possession of a bag of marijuana can forget college aid - at least for a year. And for the person who got heavily involved in drugs and got caught several times but has now gone straight, federal college aid will never be. This law is likely to hit hardest poorer students, who rely on federal college aid, and blacks, who make up a disproportionate share of those arrested on drug charges. Education can be a way out of not only poverty but also of dependency. It can be a path from a failed life to successful and productive one. Do we really want such an unjust law blocking the way? - --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk