Haze Surrounds Aid for Drug Users

High school marijuana users everywhere breathed a heavy, smoke-tinged sigh of relief this past February 1. On that day, Congress amended the Higher Education Act (HEA): College students with pre-college drug offenses would again be eligible for federal financial aid.

But students with offenses during college still forfeit their funds from the government—and a spate of drug-related incidents earlier this year at Harvard has raised questions about the inviolability of financial aid at the College.

Opponents of the federal drug policy want the HEA to be amended further.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), along with the group Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), challenged the constitutionality of the HEA this past March, claiming that the amended version still offended the Fifth Amendment’s double jeopardy clause by punishing students twice for the same offense.

And College administrators confirmed that Harvard mitigates the effects of this Aid Elimination Penalty, compensating students for the loss of federal financial aid, as long as they are not expelled. Expulsion is a rare event that has occurred less than once a year in the past decade, and a drug offense has not been the publicly acknowledged reason for a dismissal in over 10 years.

Although pre-college offenses are not considered in determining financial aid, they are still taken into account during the admissions process, according to College administrators.

The debate outside Harvard, however, is one that has been going on—quietly—in the legislative and legal arenas for some time.

PARTY LIKE IT’S 1998

In 1998, Congress passed the HEA Aid Elimination Penalty, which added a new question to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Students were asked whether they had “ever been convicted of possessing or selling illegal drugs.” Based on their answers, over 189,065 people have been denied federal financial aid in the past eight years, according to a report from Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), a Washington-based student advocacy organization.

But this number, SSDP claims, does not include what may be a very large number of students who never attempted to apply for financial aid because of their drug convictions.

About 2.6 percent of FAFSA applications in the 2000-2001 school year left the question blank—and had their applications processed nevertheless due to bureaucratic “confusion and time constraints,” according to the SSDP report. The Bush administration’s Department of Education (DOE), however, has since refused to process any applications that fail to answer the question.

DEALING AT HARVARD

Harvard’s recent alleged drug offenders, however, won’t have to worry about their aid, even if they are convicted—as long as they are not expelled, they are eligible for Harvard financial aid, according to Sally C. Donahue, director of financial aid at the College.

If a student is convicted while at the College, the Administrative Board makes a decision about his or her enrollment. However, Donahue says, “as long as they are enrolled, students are eligible to receive financial aid.”

Donahue added that if a Harvard undergraduate were to lose federal funding, the College would continue “to meet his or her need through institutional sources,” thus replacing the funding that the federal government previously supplied.Donahue added that, although there is no clear-cut policy regarding the effect of drug charges on a student’s likelihood of acceptance, all admission applications are thoroughly scrutinized.

“[They] have to check a box saying [they’ve] not been disciplined in school,” she said. “[We] ask students who’ve been suspended to supply the admissions committee with a description of the circumstances.”

Three undergraduates were charged with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, and a fourth with only possession, after police allegedly tracked the scent of marijuana to their DeWolfe dorm room in January. And two Quincy House students face charges from an allegedly LSD-related incident this past March.

One undergraduate recently charged with drug possession, who asked not to be named to avoid greater publicity, said that although he or she does not receive term-time financial aid, the student was allowed to keep Harvard funding for an upcoming summer program.

Although none of the six alleged offenders were arrested, the fact that these busts were made by police will not affect the outcomes of their disciplinary proceedings.

In terms of “severity of punishment...[it] makes no difference,” wrote Assistant Dean of the College John L. Ellison, who is also the secretary of the Ad Board, in an e-mail.

The legal gravity of the drug involved, in addition, will make no difference—Ellison noted that “the fact that it is a controlled and illegal substance is all that matters.”

TOKE’N EFFECT

The Aid Elimination Penalty’s author and primary proponent, Congressman Mark E. Souder (R-Ind.), told USA Today in 2000 that the penalty’s purpose would be to “deter students from using and selling drugs.”

The law has since drawn fire from experts in various fields—mostly for the inequity of its effects, they say.

“The Higher Education Act is a barrier to education that primarily punishes working-class Americans,” says Adam Wolf, staff attorney for the ACLU Drug Reform Project.

The ACLU claims that the provision hurts students of lower economic status, those who would most need federal financial aid. A list of organizations as diverse as the New York Times Editorial Board, the American Council on Education, and the Presbyterian Church have declared their opposition to the penalty.

The law also has an inequitable effect even among convicts, says the ACLU.

“It irrationally subjects only those with drug convictions to this penalty,” says Wolf. “A drug conviction is the only one that can deprive you of financial aid....You could be convicted of murder and still receive aid from the government.”

The U.S. Governmental Accounting Office released a study in September 2005 that failed to find any evidence that the Aid Elimination Penalty “actually helped to deter drug use.”

The report observed that college graduates “earn nearly twice as much over a lifetime as those persons who have only a high school diploma.” These findings, along with a “strong consensus among economists that formal education has a positive impact not only on personal income but also on society,” and the discovery that undergraduate education means “decreases in crime” and “decreased dependence upon certain types of public assistance,” helped motivate the 2005 amendment.

But for the College undergraduates still awaiting a conclusion to their respective trials, the fate of their Harvard careers is still up in the air—even if their financial aid may not be.

—Staff writer Matthew S. Blumenthal can be reached at mblument@fas.