By Josh Wolf
Daily Bruin Contributor
Students who have been convicted of drug crimes become
automatically ineligible for federal financial aid under current
law, but a bill making its way through the U.S. House of
Representatives would change that.
Representative Barney Frank, D-Mass., has introduced legislation
to repeal the ban on federal financial aid for students with drug
convictions, saying that current law is both misguided and
unfair.
“It doesn’t seem to be the right way to deal with
the problem,” said Peter Kovar, a spokesman with
Frank’s office.
While existing policy is in line with the nation’s war on
drugs, Frank believes that its selectivity is one of its
problems.
“Someone who commits murder or armed robbery is not
automatically barred from financial aid eligibility,” Frank
said in a statement.
“This is the only type of conviction for which there is an
automatic denial of aid,” Kovar added. “They’re
singling out this crime.”
Another of Frank’s concerns is the people affected by the
current law. Financial aid officers in his home state of
Massachusetts brought the issue to his attention.
The restriction on financial aid to students with drug
convictions was forcing students to skip college altogether, Kovar
said.
The bill imposes a restriction on financial aid and not
enrollment, so students from wealthier families can sustain drug
convictions and still pay their way through college, but many
students cannot.
Existing law has had a disproportionate effect on people that
are less well off ““Â especially minorities ““
according to Kovar.
“Members of minority groups will have a harder time
attending college,” Kovar said.
Ronald Johnson, the director of financial aid at UCLA, said that
the current law has not been applied to any students enrolled at
UCLA.
“We really haven’t had any circumstances where a
student has been barred from receiving financial aid,”
Johnson said.
Even if a student was subject to the federal restriction, the
University of California’s distribution of financial aid,
which is independent of the federal policy, can compensate.
“The University of California has taken the position that
it is not going to adhere to (the restrictive policy) with its own
funding,” Johnson said.
But the law has still had an effect on students at UCLA and
nationwide, as it has slowed down the processing of their requests
for federal aid.
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid that students must
complete to receive financial aid includes a mandatory question
about the applicant’s drug convictions.
In the past, many students left the question blank, and the U.S.
Department of Education decided not to pursue the issue because of
the magnitude of the effort. But last year, the words “Do not
leave question 35 blank” appeared next to the answer bubbles,
and department employees were instructed to follow up on blank
answers.
All of this has led to a backlog as the USDE must process the
applicants’ answers.
“The most grievous part is that it could be
administratively disruptive and delay getting funds to
students,” Johnson said. “The real concern is the fact
that this is a bureaucratic hurdle that is affecting hundreds of
thousands of students.”
But this doesn’t mean that Frank’s proposal will
necessarily meet with success.
“They’re trying to repeal a regulation that says you
shouldn’t be using drugs,” Johnson said, noting that
this seems counter-intuitive.
“The House of Representatives is dominated by conservative
Republicans,” Kovar said. “(The bill) won’t move
very quickly.”
Frank’s bill, HR 786, would repeal the current law that
was passed in 1998. The law created standards for ineligibility
based on the extent of the crime. For possession, the first offense
results in a one-year suspension of ineligibility, the second in a
two-year ban, and the third in an indefinite suspension.
Punishments for selling controlled substances are accelerated.
The first conviction results in a two-year suspension and the
second leads to an indefinite suspension.
On April 20, the bill was referred to a subcommittee of the
House Committee on Education and the Work force, where it is still
under review.