The following are answers to some of the tough questions surrounding this issue:

1. Doesn't the drug provision permit students to regain eligibility if they successfully complete a drug treatment program?

While financial aid can be restored after successful completion of a treatment program, the drug provision does not allocate any money for treatment. And if someone can't afford college without public aid, they probably can't afford the high cost of private treatment either.

Additionally, the treatment provision is overly broad and fails to distinguish between casual drug use and serious abuse. A student caught smoking a joint, for example, is no more in need of a drug treatment program than a student fined for underage drinking is in need of treatment for alcoholism.

2. Doesn't withholding aid to students with drug convictions mean that more money is available to students who haven't broken the law?

No, an individual student's federal financial aid is determined by a preexisting need-based equation set up by the Dept. of Education. One may assume that when the Dept. of Education cuts aid to students with drug convictions, more money would be left over for students without drug convictions, but this is not so.

In fact, this drug provision does not instruct the Dept. of Education to transfer any money saved by denying aid to drug offenders to the rest of the applicants. Instead, the money "saved" may actually be spent on administrative costs associated with implementing the new law or other costs having little or nothing to do with dispersing financial aid.

3. Doesn't the drug provision deter students from using taxpayer money to buy drugs?

1. No, a student cannot spend his or her federal financial aid on anything but the cost of education.

2. There is no reason to believe that this federal law will do anything to remedy the problem of drug abuse on campuses. In fact, Congress is ill equipped to deal with an individual student with a drug or alcohol problem at a given school.

The administrators at each school, who know their students best, should be the ones to decide how to handle those who may have a substance abuse problem. The federal government should keep its hands out of this delicate process and restore such discretion to school administrators.

4. Won't this drug provision keep dangerous drug dealers off campuses?

It is likely that most of the applicants whose aid is being cut by this law were not convicted of drug dealing, but drug possession. Marijuana, for example, is the most common illegal drug for which Americans are arrested. And according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report for the United States in 1999, 704,812 marijuana arrests were made. Of those marijuana arrests, 620,541--or 88%--were for possession alone. The profile of the typical victim of this drug provision is a young person from a middle or lower-income family who has already been punished for a misdemeanor pot possession conviction. And because most of the law's victims are young people, they are likely to be first-time offenders.

Campus safety is a serious concern that must be addressed, but this drug provision does nothing to keep campuses safe or drug-free. Perhaps one could reasonably argue that "kingpin" drug dealers running lucrative operations shouldn't get federal financial aid to go to school. But a blanket ban like this one only hurts young people who most need help, because it only affects lower and middle-income students who qualify for financial aid in the first place.

5. Shouldn't actions have consequences?

Of course actions have consequences. But how many times does a non-violent drug offender need to be punished for his or her actions? These would-be students having their aid cut have already paid whatever price the criminal justice system demands. How does it make sense to continually punish young people in such a way that limits their ability to get an education and improve their lives? Congress should be concerned about consequences--especially the negative consequences of ill-conceived policies such as this one.

6. Isn't federal financial aid a privilege, not a right?

Whether or not federal financial aid is a privilege or a right is a philosophical question. Above all, the disbursement of federal financial aid is a need-based policy designed to help would-be students who are in need. The drug question is now the only question that does not concern the needs of a particular applicant. So the question is: Whose needs are being served by this drug question?

7. If the Department of Education does not provide a racial breakdown of the applicants whose aid had been cut, how can we know for sure that the law discriminates based on race?

Even though the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) does not ask about race, we know that people of color are disproportionately targeted by the "War on Drugs." For example, unresolved problems in the criminal justice system, such as racial profiling, lead to African-Americans making up 55% of all drug convictions, even though African-Americans comprise only 13% of illegal drug users (source: The Sentencing Project).

Even President Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft acknowledge the problem of racial profiling in policing, and they have vowed to remedy it. But only when law enforcement's tactics and the criminal justice system are radically reformed, this provision threatens to spread the inequalities of those institutions into the realm of higher education.

8. Why should we (the student body) be concerned about this drug provision and why should we take our time to debate it?

We should be concerned, because any student who receives federal financial aid is a potential victim of this law. (Be sure to check with your school's financial aid office to find out if any students at your school have been affected).

According to the Department of Education, nearly 9,000 students lost some or all of their federal financial aid during the 2000-2001 school year after revealing a drug conviction on their Free Application for Financial Student Aid (FAFSA). Additionally, about 280,000 applicants refused to answer the drug question last year yet had their applications approved. But unlike last year, this year's applicants refusing to answer the drug question are considered ineligible for aid by the Department of Education until they otherwise do.

We know from the Department of Education that about 22,000 applicants for the upcoming 2001-2002 school year have revealed a past drug conviction. We also know that additional 10,000 applicants left the drug question blank so far. So with only about one-third of the likely applicants processed this year, we can estimate that by year's end the number of drug provision casualties may reach as many as 90,000. Even if it hasn't been hit yet, we can be sure that our campus will not be spared the consequences of this law. As student leaders, we must stand up for our fellow students and do whatever we can to make sure that educational opportunity is not the next victim of Congress' failed "War on Drugs."

Tuesday, 13-Nov-2001 00:50:43 CST