Pubdate: Sat, 30 Jul 2005 Source: Minneapolis Star-Tribune (MN) Copyright: 2005 Star Tribune Contact: http://www.startribune.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/266 Author: Rob Hotakainen and Melissa Lee Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?219 (Students for Sensible Drug Policy) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hea.htm (Higher Education Act) LIMITS ON STUDENT AID UP FOR VOTE WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Jill Johnson, 21, paid a $600 fine after she tried to sneak a pipe and marijuana into a concert last summer, but she says she only occasionally smokes the drug and should not be denied college financial aid for doing so. "I think that I deserve to have money and be able to go to school ... I go back home to Elk River, and everybody's doing meth and they're doing coke and all this stuff," she said. "I mean, I've never touched it. I look at them, and I think they have a drug problem." After hearing similar complaints from students for years, Congress is rethinking a five-year-old law that has denied federal grants and loans to tens of thousands of students with drug convictions. Under a bill headed for a House vote in September, students convicted of drug crimes before enrolling in college would be eligible for aid, while those convicted while attending college would still lose their eligibility. "There needs to be some incentive to keep you from getting on drugs," said Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., a member of the House Education Committee, which approved the plan last week. "The loss of your student aid is an appropriate tool." Kline said the plan "seems pretty straightforward to me. It simply says if you're getting aid and using drugs, you should stop or get help, or you're not going to get the aid." Arguments against Critics of the proposed change say it does not go far enough. They say it would do nothing to help students such as Johnson, who worked two part-time jobs last year to make up for the loss of financial aid. "It's still really going to affect the average college student caught with a joint on campus," said Chris Mulligan, campaign director of the Coalition for Higher Education Act Reform. He estimated 35,000 students lose their aid every year because of the provision. Officials say there is no way to know the effects of the law because no one tracks how many convicted students do not bother to apply for aid because of the law. Some opponents also say the current law is discriminatory because most of those convicted on drug charges are members of minority groups or from low-income families. Lissa Jones, executive director of Minnesota-based African American Family Services, said the law is an example of racism playing out in public policy. "The drug provision is about identifying a group of individuals and saying they are unworthy because they have made bad decisions in the past," she said. Discriminatory law? Joel Johnson, past president of the University of Minnesota Law School's College Republicans, dismissed the idea that the law discriminates. "It emphasizes what society deems is appropriate behavior," said Johnson, who graduated from the law school this year. "We've said drug use is a bad thing, something we want to deter. This is no more discriminatory than the drug laws themselves." As the House prepares to vote on scaling back the law, some groups urge that it be abolished altogether. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., co-sponsor of a bill to scrap the law, said it is unacceptable to single out ex-offenders with drug convictions. "There is no other category of crime that has a ban on financial-aid eligibility," he said. Student groups also are lobbying Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., to sponsor a bill in the Senate to get rid of the law, but Coleman is not interested. In a statement, he said the current law is "a reasonable approach" as it stands. A big priority Mulligan said the coalition has lined up hundreds of groups to support the bill to abolish the law, including nearly a dozen in Minnesota. One of those is Students for Sensible Drug Policy, which has a chapter at the University of Minnesota's Law School. Andrew Deutsch, a member who will be a third-year law student this fall, said the legislation is one of the group's priorities. "Our biggest concern with it is that drug provisions tend to affect minorities ... That's a fundamental flaw," he said. Under the current law, students with one federal or state drug possession conviction lose aid for a year after the offense. For a second possession offense, aid is denied for two years. A third offense results in losing aid indefinitely. Penalties for drug sales convictions are steeper, with the first offense costing students two years of aid and the second making them permanently ineligible. Johnson, who graduated from Elk River High School in 2002, had never been arrested until last summer, after she completed her sophomore year at St. Cloud State University. Her purse was searched as she and some friends tried to gain entry to a rock concert in Somerset, Wis. Afterward, Johnson became ineligible for financial aid for her junior year and had to work two jobs, baby-sitting at a fitness center and working as a sales clerk, to pay her college expenses. She said if Congress wants to penalize students and make sure taxpayer money is not spent on drugs, federal officials could simply send checks directly to the university to pay for tuition and housing. But she said it is unfair for students who make a mistake to lose all of their financial aid. "It's harder to concentrate on school and concentrate on yourself if you're stressing about money and how you're going to pay for school," said Johnson, who hopes to work in public relations after graduating next year. As for the marijuana, she says she no longer buys it. And she no longer tries to sneak it into concerts. "I leave that up to my friends," she said. "I have bad luck. If I tried it, I'm sure it would happen again." - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin