Pubdate: Fri, 24 Feb 2006
Source: Daily Free Press (Boston U, MA Edu)
Contact:  http://www.dailyfreepress.com/
Address: 842 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215
Fax: (617) 232-0592
Copyright: 2006 Back Bay Publishing, Inc.
Author: Mindy Gray
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hea.htm (Higher Education  Act)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?219 (Students for Sensible Drug  Policy)

ADVOCACY GROUP FIGHTS AGAINST DRUG CONVICTION  ACT

Group Calls On U.S. To Eliminate Act That Denies Students Financial Aid

Members of the Students for Sensible Drug Policy have  recently filed 
a lawsuit against the Department of Education for withholding 
information that may help the advocacy group fight a law that 
prevents students  who are convicted on drug charges from receiving 
financial aid.

The law  was enacted in 1998 when Congress decided against allocating 
federal taxpayer-funded student aid to students convicted of drug 
offenses. Students were then required to disclose whether or not they 
have been convicted of any  drug-related crimes before applying for aid.

Ross Wilson, legislative  director of the SSDP, wrote a letter to the 
U.S. Department of Education in 2004  requesting the state-by-state 
breakdown of responses by students, saying that  this information 
would allow him to "'inform policymakers, the news media, 
and  private citizens about how the presence of the drug conviction 
question on the FAFSA affects applications for aid in each state and 
territory.'"

Wilson  also included a request to waive the $4,124 fee the 
Department of Education  charges for the list of student responses, 
which the Department of Education  denied, according to a Sep. 20 
letter to Wilson from the Department of Education, and the SSDP then 
filed the lawsuit to obtain the fee  waiver.

According to Chad Colby, spokesman for the Department of  Education, 
the Department did not consent to the waiver because administrators 
found the request was not in the public's interest.

"The reason the  department refused to grant the few waiver is 
because this organization failed  to demonstrate that its request was 
in the public interest in that it was not  likely to contribute 
significantly to public understanding of the operations 
or  activities of the government," Colby said in an email.

Colby added that  the records were "not primarily in the commercial 
interest of SSDP ... the  Department did not seek to charge the SSDP 
the commercial rate - they assessed  them at the 'other requester' 
rate, which is a lesser rate." More than 175,000  students have 
applied for Financial Aid but have been denied because of their 
answer to the drug-conviction question on the financial-aid forms, 
said Tom  Angell, campaigns director of the SSDP, adding that SSDP 
wants to "erase this  policy from the law books" and called such laws 
"ineffective."

According  to Angell, this 175,000 calculation is not an accurate 
projection of students  who did not receive financial aid because it 
does not include those who did not  apply.

"The laws are intended to reduce drug abuse, but really, 
it  increases abuse by blocking education," he said. "It makes our 
nation's drug problems worse."

Angell said the SSDP would rather see students "become  productive 
and move on with their lives," adding that "only convictions while 
someone is a college student should cause them to lose aid."

SSDP has  made significant progress as Congress recently amended the 
law so that only  students convicted of drug offenses while in school 
and receiving aid are  impacted, a change that the Department of 
Education Administration supported.

Under this amendment, after a student's first conviction, they  lose 
financial aid for one year, after their second conviction for two 
years,  and after that they lose any aid indefinitely, Angell said.

Even with  these changes to the act, SSDP members say they are not 
satisfied until the the  act is scrapped altogether.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman