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Imagine that a group of college students are having a social gathering late Friday night. It begins to get a little out of hand, and Public Safety comes to break it up. At this point, several of the students are found with a few joints of marijuana. They have to pay a fine and recieve a reprimand from the school. What many college students are unaware of is that this is not the full extent of the punishment. These students are now most likely ineligible for financial aid under the Drug Provision of the Higher Education Act.
Since the drug provision was added to the HEA in 1998, more than 160,000 students nationwide have been affected. According to a statement prepared by the Students for Sensible Drug Policy and the Coalition for Higher Education Act Reform, “the provision has had the effect of disqualifying a large number of deserving, low- to middle-income students from receiving federal aid to attend college for what are often relatively minor drug offenses, including misdemeanor possession of marijuana.”
When the law was passed, it was intended to be a deterrent from doing drugs and to apply only to students who had committed drug crimes at the time that they were applying for financial aid. Instead, it has been applied to every student who has ever committed any drug crime, no matter how minor or how long ago. On the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, if someone answers anything other than “no” on the drug conviction question, more forms must be completed in order to determine his or her eligibility for financial aid. A misdemeanor such as possession of marijuana can deem someone ineligible. For one offense, no financial aid for a year; for two offenses, no aid for two years; and for three years, an indefinite amount of time.
Since the law passed, hundreds of colleges and universities, including Yale, Columbia and their student governments have endorsed a resolution for the repeal of this act with the Removing Impediments to Students’ Education (RISE) Act. Orono student groups are hoping that soon the University of Maine will join this force. All last week, Amy Bair, a representative from Washington D.C., was on campus urging UMaine students to get involved. She spoke with the General Student Senate and worked with the Progressive Student Alliance, who sold more than 1,000 postcards that were sent to Senator Susan Collins urging her to endorse this resolution. Wednesday night, the PSA held a special meeting to discuss this further. One of the points of both this meeting and the Senate meeting was to give general information about the act to student leaders and how it can affect anyone at UMaine, and why they think students need to get involved. According to Bair, the first major flaw of this act is that it hurts lower income families.
“It’s counter-productive and really hurts families that need financial aid,” Bair said.
She said this provision is hurting the exact people that the Higher Education Act was supposed to help.
Jesse Wertheim, who spoke at the PSA meeting, made another point.
“It only affects kids that are in school, need financial aid and can do well in school,” he said.
He said if the GPA of a student who is affected by the Drug Provision falls below a C, they are automatically ineligible for financial aid. This means that all students that are losing financial aid due to the drug provision are getting As and Bs. In addition to this, 36 percent of these A and B students will never return to school after having to withdraw due to lack of financial aid.
He said it also is discriminatory. Thirteen percent of the American population is black, yet they make up 55 percent of drug convictions, while making up 13 percent of drug users.
“They are four times more likely to be convicted,” Wertheim said.
The RISE Act’s intentions are to restore eligibility for financial aid to needy students. It also reads that this act would not change criminal law pertaining to controlled substances, nor would it change any other similar prohibitions on federal aid for convicts. Wertheim said the point of the PSA meeting was to get students to take action. He said that for students to get involved, it won’t mean hours of protesting or debates, it simply means becoming aware.
To do this, everyone in the room with a cell phone dialed the number to Collin’s office, something called “phone hits,” where they left messages that urged her to endorse this act.
“This really isn’t that controversial of an issue. Susan Collins said she’d be interested in introducing it to the Senate if enough Mainers get in touch with her,” Wertheim said.
