Simon Perng It’s your job to keep punk rock
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In their latest assault on personal responsibility and
standards, campus leftists and socialists sniped at the new
financial aid ineligibility rules, defiantly defending student drug
use. These new rules in the Higher Education Act of 1998 would deny
financial aid eligibility to those that have been convicted of drug
offenses with penalties ranging from one year to indefinite
ineligibility.
Many have spun and contorted this issue as a silent attack on
youth, the poor and people of color. So far, their diatribes have
yielded mixed responses. But just two weeks ago the UCLA Financial
Aid Office proudly announced that it would try to sidestep the
financial aid ineligibility rules for students with drug
convictions by replacing lost federal funds with university
funds.
It’s debatable whether the Financial Aid Office has the
right to restore financial aid awards to those convicted of drug
offenses. But it’s unquestionable that they have done a
disservice to American taxpayers. Financial aid comes from the
people ““ not just drug-using students or financial aid
officers. Supporters of drug-use are free to finance the education
of these students if and when their financial aid fails to come
through ““ let us step back and see if they do so.
Illustration by JARRETT QUON/Daily Bruin These financial aid
penalties for drug use exist to ensure financial accountability and
encourage student responsibility. Financial aid deserves to go to
students who have shown themselves to be responsible enough to
spend it wisely and appropriately: for textbooks, tuition and rent,
not “baggies,” “rocks” and
“dime-sacks.”
Federal student aid could be inadvertently used to subsidize an
otherwise unattainable lifestyle of drug use. It is safe to say
that without the current measures, a greater percentage of students
could spend vast sums of financial aid money to fund their drug
purchases while forgoing decent meals, toiletries, clothes, and
textbook purchases.
I can illustrate this with my first-hand encounters with a
drug-addicted student who used his otherwise respectable financial
aid awards to live a life of utter debasement. Prior to his
admission to UCLA he had only been a casual drug user, but that
completely changed when the first financial aid check arrived.
He used the funds to buy obscene amounts of marijuana ““
misusing money that should have gone to textbooks and food. To
compensate for his cash-strapped condition, he skimped and did
without many basic personal essentials (food, clothing,
toiletries). Subsisting on 30-cent microwave burritos, he was
notorious for swiping food from other people’s refrigerators,
prowling for food like a cockroach, at other times stealing other
peoples’ toiletries, laundry soap and bathroom tissue.
Student assistance funds are already in limited supply ““
so why should we even contemplate giving it away to society’s
most questionable elements? Why should we look the other way and
potentially allow deranged, strung-out druggies and Robert Downey
Jr. wannabes to get their hands on student aid?
Nonetheless, it’s worthwhile to examine the campus
leftists’ two most common objections to the Higher Education
Act’s new rules. The first holds that the financial aid
penalty is a feeble attempt to wage the drug war on
“vulnerable” college kids.
This drug war excuse serves to divert your attention away from
the real purpose of the HEA’s new rules: to ensure that
hard-earned taxpayers’ money isn’t used to subsidize
college students’ socially destructive behavior. Admittedly,
this penalty won’t significantly reduce drug abuse given the
simple fact that many various segments of the population indulge
themselves with drugs. But this isn’t about the drug war.
This law does not tweak existing drug laws or criminalize one more
person. Instead it conserves scarce financial aid funds for more
levelheaded college students to benefit from them.
The second line that we’re supposed to snort is the idea
that “it’s not anti-drug abuse; it’s anti-youth
and anti-minority.” Who dares insinuate that “pro-drug
abuse” mean “pro-youth” or
“pro-minority?” Do all youth and all ethnic minorities
abuse drugs? This typically underhanded insult is a slap in the
face to all young people that try to overcome the hardships and
stereotypes of substance abuse in order to better their lives. In
our complex society drug abusers could be anyone from college
students to past and current presidents of the United States. We
shouldn’t be making excuses for anyone’s irresponsible
behavior.
It is apologia and acceptance of dangerous activities such as
drug abuse that ruin young people’s lives everyday.
The usual crowd of USAC student demagogues and radicals oppose
this prohibition. Good for them. But they insult hardworking
American taxpayers that have to foot the bill for their cherished
financial aid privileges.
It’s well known that education is a right. But financial
aid isn’t. In America, free money remains a reward not a
right, and student financial aid exists as a privilege for serious
students, not irresponsible ones. We cannot let some radical
elements twist the right to education to mean the right to reckless
behavior.