Drug Convictions and Student Loans: Don't Ask, Don't Tell

[Joanne98]

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/6/21/104639/842
Drug Convictions and Student Loans: Don't Ask, Don't Tell
By TChris, Section Legislation
Posted on Thu Jun 21, 2007 at 09:46:39 AM EST
Tags: (all tags)
The Senate version of legislation to renew the Higher Education Act, notable for its increased funding of Pell Grants, also includes a welcome but less noticed provision:

The Senate legislation would also eliminate from the federal financial aid application a controversial question asking whether applicants have been convicted of drug possession while receiving federal student aid. That question has been used to identify and strip financial aid from thousands of students. While the Senate bill would leave the drug possession penalty in the law, dropping the question from the federal financial aid form would make enforcement of the provision very difficult.
Tom Angell, government relations director at Students for Sensible Drug Policy, responds sensibly:

“While it would be more appropriate to simply erase the penalty from the lawbooks altogether, we support the committee’s effort to make sure that students with drug convictions can get aid just like anyone else.”
SSDP makes it easy to contact your senator to support the change by visiting this page.
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/6/21/104639/842

[shenmue]

1. I don't know about this

I'm not sure I want to pay while kids sit around and get high. You want scholarship funds? Read.

[Zodiak]

2. Kids do this....it is part of growing up

As much as people do not want to admit it, we learn from our mistakes, not from blindly following rules that we see broken every single day. Back in the day, people had the luxury of a little privacy....we have judged ourseles unworthy of that,now, apparently.

A GREAT proportion of college kids smoke the evil weed. Should we consider them all unworthy of their educations?

Like the death penalty, the United States clutches tightly on archaic notions that vices can be stiffly punished and rendered extinct. The rest of the civilizaed world has long let go that judgemental, rigid notion.

As far as I'm concerned, this law only meant more conformists and authoritarians are allowed a place at the big table, and artist and rebel types are denied. Fuck that.