By Jenny Blake
Daily Bruin Contributor
Despite controversy surrounding a federal drug policy that halts
financial aid for students with a drug conviction, UCLA students in
violation will likely have their aid replaced.
By replacing lost federal aid with state money, the University
of California and the UCLA Financial Aid Office are making sure
that students are not punished by a 1998 provision to the Higher
Education Act, recently enforced by the Bush Administration.
The provision, introduced into legislation by Rep. Mark Souder,
R-Indiana, states that students with a drug conviction must
complete a drug rehabilitation program and two random drug tests
before they are able to regain financial aid.
However, Souder is not happy with the way his provision is being
interpreted. He intended the provision to apply to college students
currently receiving aid, but the U.S. Department of Education took
it to mean financial aid applicants, according to his press
secretary Seth Becker.
Currently, applicants must indicate whether or not they have
ever been convicted of selling or possessing drugs, not including
alcohol or tobacco.
While the Clinton Administration did not seek details from those
who left the drug conviction question blank, the Bush
administration will deny aid to such applicants.
Last year an estimated 20 percent did not answer the question,
resulting in 1.5 million students being denied eligibility for
federal financial aid, according to the U.S. Department of
Education. The question was reworded this year to reduce confusion,
bringing the response rate to 99.6 percent.
Even with the question rewording, Souder still did not intend
for his provision to target financial aid applicants. In December,
he and Rep. Will Meeks, D-New York, introduced a corrective bill to
restrict the disqualification of students for drug offenses to
those students who committed offenses while receiving financial
aid.
“We hope that it is going to make its way through the
legislative process and that it will solve the problem,”
Becker said.
However, Souder still defends the basic principle of his
provision, something that Financial Aid Office director Ronald
Johnson and the UC are not willing to do.
“We have opposed tying eligibility for college financial
aid to an individual’s compliance with other, unrelated
federal laws,” Johnson said.
Although no UCLA students have lost financial aid because of
this provision, if a student did risk losing federal aid the school
would likely to replace it with institutional aid, Johnson
said.
The provision does not include any regulations for the
enforcement of how campus dollars are spent, even if it means
replacing lost federal aid.
“In the abstract I wonder if that money would be better
spent on other students, but we are not interested in interfering
with the inner workings of colleges and universities,” Becker
said. “Their money is their money.”
UCLA students convicted of a minor drug crime can avoid the
hassle of this provision by entering an alternate prosecution
program if they contact Student Legal Services early enough, said
SLS director Liz Kemper.
Instead of having criminal charges filed, students can
participate in this 15-hour program to avoid the risk of losing
financial aid. However, not all courts have this option and it is
up to prosecutors whether or not a student can participate.
“It’s a wonderful option where it exists and where
the prosecutor agrees, but it is not always available,”
Kemper said. “The earlier students come in, the better, and
the greater the options are of what we can do for them.”
Financial aid officials feel the law unfairly targets students
because of their economic situation, since students not receiving
financial aid are not subjected to education-related punishment if
they are convicted of a drug crime, according to Johnson.
“I believe the war on drugs should be on the battle fields
of the inner city, not the college campus where students are
working to improve our society.”
Students also said the provision is unfair in the group of
students it targets.
“Privileged students or people that lie about (drug
convictions) will get away with it,” said Chris Poole, a
first-year undeclared student. “They need to change the
system to make it fair for everybody.”
Becker said the reason Souder introduced this provision in the
first place is because students using federal money have a
responsibility to follow the law.
“Like any other scholarship, if you get money from the
federal government, there are certain conditions you have to meet
““ one of them is that you stay drug free.”