Posted on 07/18/2005 12:38:06 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Financial aid loss under review
WASHINGTON - When 20-year-old Nathan Bush was pulled over in Kenosha last October with drug paraphernalia plainly visible in his car, he lost his driver's license - and tens of thousands of dollars in financial aid.
Bush, an incoming junior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said he could have been slapped with the far more serious charge of possession of marijuana, but instead had all of his federal dollars taken away in courtroom negotiations.
"Of course, I can't pick up that kind of slack," Bush said, adding that state aid covers only about half of the $15,000 a year he pays for his education. "So it all just falls on my parents, which I'm not proud of. But I just can't come up with that kind of money."
According to Students for a Sensible Drug Policy, the federal government since 1998 has refused educational aid to more than 160,000 students like Bush, including many who were convicted of drug-related offenses before their initial application for aid.
As part of this year's reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, which a congressional committee is expected to consider this week, the so-called "retroactivity clause" could be repealed - in other words, the government could no longer legally withhold tuition assistance from students who were convicted of drug-related offenses before they filed their first application.
Tom Angell of SSDP said the measure is inadequate and called for broader legislation that would loosen the restrictions on students, like Bush, who are convicted while in school.
"While we welcome the change and think that it will help many students, there are still others who will be losing their aid," Angell said. "It's sort of like putting a Band-Aid on a gaping wound."
Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, is one of 68 co-sponsors of a bill supported by the student group that would abolish the government's right to deny financial aid based on drug-related offenses, even if a student is convicted while enrolled in college.
Baldwin called the current law "incredibly inconsistent" because it targets even the most casual of drug users while ignoring convictions for violent crime.
"There's no prohibition on somebody who has been convicted of rape or murder," Baldwin said. "In practice, this is most likely to affect somebody who had one instance of illegal behavior during their youth."
Margaret Reiter, president of the UW-Madison chapter of the student group, added that many students probably don't report drug convictions because they doubt the Department of Education will investigate their past.
"It's only the honest students who are going to get punished," Reiter said. "They think it would be a huge waste of time and money for the government to go checking them out."
The original law that allowed the Department of Education to "suspend eligibility for drug-related offenses" was passed seven years ago as part of the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, which was originally crafted in 1965 to facilitate college education for low-income and minority students.
Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., introduced the drug-related provision. Souder spokesman Martin Green said the logic behind the legislation is quite simple.
"Students who receive taxpayer dollars to go to college are not making the most of it by taking drugs," Green said. "It's one thing if they're paying for their education or if their parents are paying for it, but it's unfair to ask taxpayers to foot the bill for a student with a drug habit."
The bill was also designed, Green said, as a preventative measure under the assumption that students hoping to receive financial aid would be less likely to use and sell drugs.
Angell takes issue with this reasoning, arguing that "the provision is only a deterrent to recovery and education."
Souder and Angell agree, however, on one surprising point. Green said Souder, as an Evangelical Christian who believes strongly in redemption, never intended for the bill to behave retroactively and neither did the two chambers of Congress when they passed it. That interpretation of the enforcement plan was made, he said, by the Clinton administration just before the bill was signed into law.
"Congressman Souder was outraged, of course, when the enforcement regulations were released, and he's been working ever since then to overturn that provision," Green said. "He's pleased that he has bipartisan support to restore the original intent of Congress."
Under the original bill, a student convicted of a drug-related crime was disqualified for financial aid from the date of conviction until a date determined based on number of prior convictions and nature of the crime. A student convicted of possession of a controlled substance for the first time, for example, loses eligibility for one year while a student caught selling for the second time is disqualified indefinitely.
Green said the language was not intended to exclude students applying for financial aid after their convictions, regardless of how recently they were in court.
But like Angell, Bush said he feels "hurt" by the measure as a whole and will continue to oppose it, whether or not it behaves retroactively.
"I just feel like there's no compassion in that law," Bush said. "It's just one strike and you're out. There are a lot of smart kids who smoke marijuana at Madison, and they're going to lose their money just for that? It really hurts me."
Bush, who graduated high school in Paddock Lake with a 3.8 GPA and considers himself a good student as a kinesiology and nutritional science major, said he attends weekly drug court and counseling sessions and is now drug free. He added that he is not sure when he will regain his financial aid but emphasized that he is eager to. He feels guilty, he said, because his parents already paid his legal bills on top of financing his sister's college education.
"I'll just keep applying every year and hoping," Bush said.
No problem. I didn't want to ruin your righteous indignation.
"I wonder if they do the same for underage drinkers? If not they should because alcohol is a both more dangerous and likely to be abused."
Dude, your soo right.
Beat you! Mine's bigger than your's.
Last I checked, smoking isn't illegal, drugs are. They aren't breaking the law by smoking, but they are by buying and using drugs.
Well check again, and this time read post #49, which I was replying to. The legality of the substance is wholly irrevalent to what I was arguing.
What free ride? These are loans. He's got to pay them all back, with interest, after he graduates.
Sounds more like you've got a chip on your shoulder, my friend.
Now really... if your stupid enough to be driving around with your bong on the front seat, are you REALLY college material?
And besides, whatever happened to paying for your own damn college, anyway?
You took the words right out of my mouth. I helped pay for my college education by working, parents funded the rest, and I went to a CA state campus, as it was cheaper, I did'nt want or need a $20K loan hanging over me. I knew plenty of kids who worked full time and studied full time, and they all went on to big things, the kiddies who were there on daddy's dime either dropped out, got worthless degrees and went to work in retail, or just drifted off somewhere.
College became a "right" in the 60's, and that attitude has screwed it all up ever since. I used to always grit my teeth when my dad said "Someone needs to dig ditches and pump gas"...but he was right. The only problem is, the ditch diggers now demand college education as a "right", and they get it. They prop up their "right" to a college degree with the fact that many more employers require a degree...but they can never quite justify why a job like that is their "right".
His parents should sue the government for forcing them to subsidize their child's drug habits. I just know we can find a court somewhere to agree that there is a constitutionally protected right to have the government subsidize an individual's drug habits.
What was this idiot thinking? He should have just wasted his college years getting blasted on perfectly legal booze.
Fall on your parents? Oh I don't think so brat... You scrweed up, mommy and daddy shouldn't be bailing your sorry butt out... GET A JOB, SAVE MONEY, go to a state or community college on your own dime.....
Be a cold day in hell my son would come to me and say, Mom, Dad I got busted for drugs and lost my financial aid, now you have to pay 15,000 a year for me to go to school... SCREW THAT! I'd point em to the community College and a J.O.B.... Obviously this punks been coddled his entire life to even make a statement like that.
According to the article, it is financial aid. Never says a single word that I could find about a loan. It amounted to half of his $15,00 a year tuition, so it sounds like $7,500.
He needs to wait some tables and make up the 7.5K he was mooching off our butts instead of hitting the bong every night.
He needs to wait some tables and make up the 7.5K he was mooching off our butts instead of hitting the bong every night.
Financial aid = loans the student has to pay back, Einstein.
No, it does not. Student loans are student loams. This is part of the Higher Education Act, which gives assistance to minority and low-income students. It's all in the article if you care to read it.
And my name is not Einstein
Because you can't learn if you're high. Instead of wasting financial aid on drug-addled youth, give it to students whose brains aren't fried, 24/7 and will make something of themselves.
Interesting.
Interesting typo, huh? Damn spell checker...
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