College Students, Drugs & Financial Aid

Jennifer Yachnin's article Convicted of Drug Crimes, 7,000 U.S. Students Forfeit All or Part of Their Financial Aid, in the 23 October 2000 edition of The Chronicle of Education, discusses the result of legislation drafted by Indiana Republican Representative Mark E. Souder. Souder's legislation denies all or part of a college student's financial aid if he or she has a prior drug conviction. According to Yachnin (2000, 1) this equates to roughly "7,000 of the 9 million students who applied for financial aid" were denied. According to a related report in The Chronicle of Higher Education, another 140,000 students failed to answer the question regarding drug convictions on the financial aid application, but the government did not deny aid to these students (Burd, 2000, 1). Critics of the government's decision began complaining this would make it easier for students with prior drug convictions to acquire financial aid. This scenario is so typical of Republican sentiments and policies toward America's war on drugs, that it demonstrates how those sentiments and policies are: a) prejudiced & binary; b) inadequate to resolve the issue of drug use; and, c) similar to Republican efforts to cure crime by building more prisons instead of and at the expense of education and treatment efforts.

The attitudes and policies behind the desire to withhold financial aid from college students with prior drug convictions is prejudi