Beginning with the 2000-01 school year, students who have been convicted of selling or possessing drugs will be denied federal financial aid. This new law is a provision of the Higher Education Act (HEA) of 1998. Students will be seeing the provision in the form of a question.

Question 28 on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) addresses the issue of drug convictions. Although in effect this year, many students did not answer question 28. This year, more than 750,000 students left question 28 on the FAFSA blank. With financial aid offices facing such large numbers of students to contact about the question, the Education Department stepped in. The Education Department took a survey of a number of students who left the question blank. What they found was that instead of many students who would have been ineligible for aid due to drug convictions, most students left the question blank because they either didn' t understand it or they simply forgot to answer it. Because of the confusion and the large numbers of students who had already filed a FAFSA, it was decided that students who left the question blank would receive aid for the 2000-01 school year. However, starting with the 2001-02 school year, students who leave the question blank will not receive aid.

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