Frank Calling for Drug-Free Student Aid Repeal
WASHINGTON – Rep. Barney Frank (D-4 th) says he believes this will be the year Congress repeals the law restricting financial aid for students convicted of drug-related offenses, something he has been working on since the law took effect five years ago.
“The unfairness of it seems pretty clear to people, so I think there’s a chance,” he said. Previously, Republicans would not allow his legislation to “come up as a freestanding bill” but because the provision is now part of the Higher Education Act – which is up for renewal this year- its repeal is likelier this year than in the past, Frank said.
Under current law, students applying for federal financial aid must state whether they have drug-related convictions. An affirmative answer could make the student ineligible for aid for a set amount of time based on their offenses.
The question was added to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form in 2000 after Congress overwhelmingly adopted the provision as an amendment to the Higher Education Act’s reauthorization in 1998.
According to Frank’s office, more than 160,000 students have been denied aid under the provision. But some organizations, such as Students for Sensible Drug Policy, say that estimate falls well short of the true total.
“That number doesn’t account for all the students who started filling out the form, came across the drug conviction question and figured that they’d be denied aid and didn’t bother wasting the postage to mail the application,” said Tom Angell, the organization’s communications director. “So really it’s affecting an untold number of students.”
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigations 1,958 people under the age of 18 were arrested in 2002 for drug abuse violations in Massachusetts. Overall there were 13,828 drug abuse arrests in the state in 2002.
About 63 percent of Massachusetts high school seniors reported in 2001 that they had used marijuana at least once in their life, compared to about 52 percent nationwide, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Data from 2000-2001 shows more than 14 percent of Massachusetts residents 12 to 17 years old and almost 26 percent of residents 18 to 25 admitted using an illegal drug in the previous month.
The process for determining whether a student is denied aid begins with an initial question asking whether a student has been convicted of a drug related charge.
Students who answer yes are directed to a worksheet asking if the convictions have been removed from their record and if they have completed an accepted drug rehabilitation program. Convictions before the age of 18 do not count unless the student was tried as an adult.
Depending upon the time and type of the conviction and the number of convictions, a student may be ineligible for federal aid for as little as one year to a maximum of life. A conviction for selling drugs carries a longer period of ineligibility than a conviction for using drugs.
Students convicted of possessing a controlled substance are ineligible for federal aid for one year for the first offense, two years for a second offense and indefinitely for a third offense.
A conviction for selling a controlled substance makes a student ineligible for two years for the first offense and indefinitely for the second offense
The FAFSA form is used by colleges and universities across the country to determine financial aid. More than 226,600 Massachusetts residents filled out a form in 2004 and more than 101,200 have done so this year, according to FAFSA records.
Nationwide, more than 14 million applications are expected for fiscal year 2005, according to the Department of Education.
This is Frank’s third attempt to repeal the regulation, and while other lawmakers, including the provision’s original author, Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.), want a partial repeal, the Massachusetts Democrat says that will not be enough.
“Something’s better than nothing, but I think still it ought to be complete,” Frank said, “but that doesn’t mean that every drug addict gets scholarship aid and . every armed robber gets scholarship aid. We shouldn’t single out one set of crimes and treat them differently than other crimes that are more serious.”
Currently there is no restriction on financial aid for students convicted of other offenses, including felonies and violent crimes.
Martin Green, a spokesman for Souder, said in a voice-mail message that the provision “was drastically misinterpreted” when enforcement regulations were being written. He also said the Indiana Republican is working to change that interpretation to apply only to those who are convicted while receiving student aid and not to those with previous convictions.
Souder is a member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Higher Education Act’s reauthorization-and over Frank’s bill.
Alexa Marrero, a committee spokeswoman, said the committee has been working on partial repeal “for a couple of years.” Chairman John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) have introduced a bill calling for a partial repeal.
“The intention when it was enacted in 1998 was to serve as a disincentive for students to commit drug-related offenses while in school and receiving federal student aid,” Marrero said. “And so the appropriate application of the provision would be only applied to students who are in school and receiving federal aid.”
But Yakov Kronrad says partial repeal is not good enough even if it would encourage more students with previous convictions to apply for college.
Kronrad said he was a graduate student and teaching assistant at Worcester Polytechnic Institute when he was arrested and convicted in 2002 and sentenced to one year of probation for possession of marijuana and hallucinogenic mushrooms with intent to distribute.
The 24-year-old said the arrest “didn’t even happen anywhere around the university,” but he believes the institute “wanted to set an example” for other students by suspending him for two years.
Kronrad, who still lives in Worcester working for a software company, said a “faulty decision” on his part should not have had an influence on his education because “it in no way conflicted to what I did as a student.”
In an effort to inform students about the issue and work to change the provision, Students for Sensible Drug Policy is working with its chapters on college campuses and high schools across the country, including in Amherst and Northampton, rallying students to contact their legislators.
Other organizations are tackling the issue in a different way, offering scholarships to those who have been affected by the current law.
The John W. Perry Scholarship Fund, named for a New York City police officer killed in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has given out 14 scholarships to 10 students, ranging from $600 to $2,000, since it began in 2003.
None of the recipients has been from Massachusetts, but David Borden, the fund’s executive director, said the group has raised $5,000 for next semester’s scholarships and expects to have more as it continues hosting fundraisers around the country, such as an event in Boston last December.
Borden, executive director for the Drug Reform Coordination Network, which runs the fund, said he would support partial repeal of the provision although he believes it will continue to discriminate against those who cannot afford to attend school without financial assistance.
“These people have already been punished through the criminal justice system and this is a second punishment that no judge has any control over,” Borden said.
The Coalition for Higher Education Reform is working to have legislation similar to Frank’s introduced in the Senate that calls for full repeal, is limited to that subject and can be part of a bipartisan effort to use the legislation “as leverage,” said Chris Mulligan, the campaign’s director.
Other organizations such as the American Council on Education are calling for the drug question to be removed from the financial aid form because it has no relation to the student’s financial needs.
“The FAFSA form is essentially a document to determine a student’s financial need, and if that’s what it’s going to be used for that should be all it’s used for,” said Chris Simmons, the council’s assistant director of government relations.
“You can be convicted of a drug crime but if you’re not in financial need it’s not going to affect your college plans,” he continued. “You can be convicted of lots of other kinds [of crimes] and still get a Pell Grant, but if you get caught with a joint you lose financial aid funding.”
Six Massachusetts House Democrats are among the Frank bill’s 63 co-sponsors, and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) proposed legislation on Feb. 14 that includes striking the provision from the Higher Education Act. The bill has seven co-sponsors, including Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass).
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