College students who get convicted of drug use lose their financial aid, but that might change as public opinion shifts against the war on drugs.
A bipartisan group of senators have introduced legislation that would repeal language that costs students their financial aid when convicted for a drug offense, according to The Huffington Post.
Senators Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) have introduced The Stopping Unfair Collateral Consequences from Ending Student Success Act (SUCCESS Act) on the basis that the current law is unfair and overly harsh.
If successful, the legislation will repeal the policy that dates back to 1998, when former Congressman Mark Souder, a Republican from Indiana, added the amendment in the Anti-Drug Abuse Act.
For the first possession offense, students lose aid access for one year, and a second offense increases the penalty to two years. A third possession offense suspends a student’s eligibility indefinitely. Selling illegal drugs is a two-year ineligibility for the first offense, then an indefinite ineligibility after the second offense.
More than 1,100 students lost their aid eligibility between 2013 and 2014. Aid isn’t only grants and scholarships – they cannot access student loans, either. A conviction as small as marijuana possession brings into effect the penalty.
“It is not the Education Department’s job to punish students for drug infractions,” Senator Hatch told The Huffington Post.
A Pew Research Center poll found that 53 percent of all adults support marijuana legalization, and support is strongest among the young. The Silent Generation is the only one where a majority oppose legalization.
Restricting access to higher education aid for drug convictions has gone from a punishment to prohibit drug use to a realization that restricting opportunity isn’t likely to dissuade people from using drugs, and it could be costlier to society by making drug users poorer. Punishment has faded as a purported policy driver.
As more states legalize marijuana and students face fewer penalties for its possession and use, “blazing it” isn’t so risky, academically speaking.
