Thousands of students with drug convictions lost financial aid this year as the U.S. Department of Education began enforcing a 1998 provision of the federal Higher Education Act more strictly.
Now, student advocacy groups across the country are putting more pressure on legislators to repeal the provision. Last weekend, the Students for Sensible Drug Policy sponsored a conference attended by high school and college students in Washington, D.C.
Students who attended the conference plan to protest the law beginning Nov. 29 on more than 100 campuses nationwide. They will ask university presidents to endorse a resolution to repeal the drug provision.
Students in Oregon, including some at the University, are also working on campaigns to change the law.
Nearly 26,000 students were denied financial aid this year because of a drug conviction, compared to 1,835 students last year, according to Education Department spokeswoman Jane Glickman.
At the University, seven of the 9,701 University students who submitted financial aid applications this year lost aid because of the law, Financial Aid associate director Jim Gilmour said.
That number may be misleading, Gilmour said, because students who would have been denied aid because of a drug conviction may have chosen not to apply.
Glickman added that in the past, if students did not answer the question about drug convictions on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, they were not penalized.
But this year, students who left the question blank were sent a letter advising them that their financial aid eligibility would be jeopardized if they did not answer the question. Those who do not reply will automatically lose aid, Glickman said.
As of Nov. 7, about 9,500 students who did not answer the question were likely to lose aid because they had not replied to the letter, Glickman said.
Former University of Washington student Jamil Scarberry, 24, lost his financial aid because of the law. He was arrested in California last year with three friends after police found drugs in their hotel room. Along with marijuana, the police found Valium bought by one of Scarberry’s friends in Mexico.
Scarberry, who was not attending school at the time, was convicted on felony drug charges and was ordered to return to school for the next three years or spend 160 days in jail.
He chose school, but because of the drug provision, he was no longer eligible to receive financial aid. Scarberry, who can no longer afford to attend the UW, now works and attends classes part-time at Seattle Central Community College.
“It’s kind of a double-edged sword, the way they set it up,” he said.
The law has been criticized by groups such as the NAACP, the American Council on Education and the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.
Opponents of the law argue that it disproportionately targets low-income and minority students. Some say that it also penalizes students for being honest and punishes them twice for the same crime.
Gilmour said it is difficult to check if students are telling the truth when they say they have not received any drug convictions because there is no central database containing those records.
But, he added, students can be barred from receiving financial aid forever and, in rare cases, even face criminal charges if they are caught lying on the FAFSA form.
Even Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., who wrote the law, is not happy with how it is being enforced. Souder intended the law to apply only to students already receiving aid when convicted, Souder’s spokesman Seth Becker said.
Souder’s efforts to rewrite the provision have failed in the past, but he is continuing to work to change the law. The Bush administration has been receptive to his proposals, Becker said.
But Souder does not support repealing the law, Becker said. Federal aid is “a privilege, not a right,” he said, and students should not be allowed to break the law while receiving taxpayer money.
“We do not think it is in any way unreasonable to say to students that if ‘you are receiving federal money, we expect you to live within the law,’” he said.
Students for Sensible Drug Policy, one of the most vocal national organizations working to repeal the law, does not have an active chapter at the University. But while SSDP leaders were rallying at the U.S. Capitol, members of the Oregon Students of Color Coalition also met to organize a campaign against the drug provision. ASUO Multicultural Advocate Mario Sifuentez is one University member involved in the campaign.
Although the campaign is still in the planning stage, OSCC members will focus on education as a way to raise support for their position, OSCC field organizer Huy Ong said.
Ong said the drug provision discriminates against students of color. Although drug use rates are fairly consistent among racial and ethnic groups, he said, students of color receive drug convictions at a disproportionately high rate.
“Out of all drug arrests, 50 percent are African-Americans,” he said. “When you look at conviction rates, that number skyrockets.”
SSDP Board Member Dan Goldman said the law unjustly targets those who need financial assistance the most and limits educational opportunities.
“By its very definition, financial aid goes to those who need it most,” he said. “We feel that setting up a roadblock for students to go to college is not in the government’s best interest.”