Posted on 09/21/2002 1:10:32 PM PDT by JediGirl
WASHINGTON - More than 30,000 American college students will be denied federal funding for the 2002-2003 school year due to the Drug-Free Student Aid provision of the Higher Education Act, according to an annual report released by the U.S. Department of Education. The HEA provision, which was passed by Congress in 1998, denies federal financial aid to students with prior drug convictions.
A total of 86,898 students have been denied financial aid since the enforcement of the HEA drug provision in 2000 and the DOE estimates that tens of thousands of students will chose not to apply for federal financial aid due to the provision.
A drug conviction is the only crime that results in the loss of federal financial assistance. Students convicted of any other crime, including murder or rape, may still receive full funding.
In a recent statement, Representative Mark Souder, the bill's author, said that the measure was originally enacted to cut federal funding to those students who received drug convictions while already receiving aid. Souder also hoped that the bill would act as a means to discourage drug use among high school teens.
Over 10 million students apply for federal aid annually and according to estimates made by the DOE, 27 per cent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 admitted to using an illegal substance in 2001. Despite an increase of more than $12 billion in federal funding to wage the war against drugs since 1982, almost half of all high school students in the United States admit to experimenting with an illegal substance.
Graham Boyd, director of the American Civil Liberties Union Drug Policy Litigation Project, believes that the HEA provision is unfair to minorities.
"This law is discriminatory," Boyd said. "If a student is convicted of a drug offence, and [the student's] family can afford to pay for college, [the student] will be unaffected by the legislation, while those who are already in danger of being pushed to society's margins will not be able to get federal aid."
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He attended public school and learned to behave himself. Last time I looked the public schools were still free of cost. Even the poor, and the most isolated of minority personnel can attend without paying a penney.
People who don't wish to participate in this society do not need a special subsidy out of my tax dollars.
Oh, man, that's classic! I'm going to wear that out...
*YAWN*
I would agree that they shouldn't either. Educational funding is a priviledge, not a Divine right. If you want to be funded then play by the rules. If the rules (not unreasonably) insist you not be convicted of certain offenses...what's the prob?
Does anyone else see a potential problem here? Is student aid a drug that entices colleges to 'fry their brains' for the sake of enrolling subsidies?
She should pay attention to those words of wisdom from my youngest.
I don't see this as a pro-drug posting, per se. It is an issue of the allocation of tax dollars for higher education.
I will agree it would be better if there were no student aid at all and taxes were reduced appropriately. BUT they are still taxing for this "service" including the drug user and his parents. How do you deny him the same right to collect aid because of a violation of a silly law that has nothing to do with education?
If you want him out of the game, then untax him and his parents appropriately. He will probably be better of.
Decades ago it was very common to find FBI agents who'd worked at the post office to pay their way through college and lawschool.
Now, we have FBI agents running investigations of a postal operation who actually believe that most mail is simply dropped in curbside residential delivery boxes.
They proved to be ineducable and would not believe there was anything more to the post office than what they'd seen.
If there had been no federal student aid programs those guys would have had to have worked at the post office and the case would have been solved in a couple of weeks!
Get inside the mind of the Law for a minute. The Law wants to link drug offenses with educational benefits to further stigmatize illicit drug use.
The Law doesn't share your view that it's edicts are "silly"—it wants to maximixe their effect because it assumes it is right. Stripping an offender of financial benefits is another form of threatened punishment that the Law hopes will persuade potential offenders to comply.
It doesn't always work, and offenders rarely agree with the cost of their choice.
Where's the outrage? What about 10th amendment issues? What about States rights? Find for me, I command you, where in the Constitution it states that the Federal government has this right!
Oh well, I guess this is only important when it comes to the WOD. Other than that, we won't hear from them.
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