Michael's Message about the Drug War on Education

"As your constituent, I'm writing to ask you to take action on an important issue that will be in front of the HELP Committee very soon.

Since 1998, nearly 200,000 aspiring college students have been stripped of their financial aid because they have drug convictions, usually for relatively minor offenses such as possession of small amounts of marijuana. I respectfully urge you to make sure that this aid elimination penalty, which was added to the Higher Education Act in 1998, is repealed through this year's HEA reauthorization.

While the penalty is supposed to keep young people away from drugs, it actually does the opposite by kicking at-risk students out of school.

But blocking access to education doesn't just hurt the students directly impacted; it has harmful implications for society as a whole. College graduates are much more likely to become successful taxpaying citizens, while those who are kicked out of school are more likely to abuse drugs, become costly drains on the criminal justice system, and rely on expensive government assistance programs.

Furthermore, since there are already minimum GPA requirements to receive financial aid, the penalty only affects hardworking students who are doing well in their classes.

As for students who are causing problems and disrupting the learning process for others, college administrators already have the authority to expel them, and judges have long had the ability to revoke student aid from people with drug convictions on a case-by-case basis. The one-size-fits-all penalty strips discretion from decision-makers who know students best.

Numerous addiction recovery, criminal justice, religious, and other leaders have insisted that education is one of the best means to reduce crime and drug abuse, and Congress's own Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance recommended removing the drug conviction question from the aid application, calling it "irrelevant" to eligibility. Even the Bush administration doesn’t like the penalty; the Undersecretary of Education recently testified to a House subcommittee that the drug question is “not anything that we need at the department.”

Fortunately, this year’s HEA reauthorization process presents a great opportunity to get rid of the harmful and unfair penalty once and for all. As a member of the HELP Committee, please help tens of thousands of hardworking and determined individuals get back into school and on the path to success by making sure that the HEA bill includes language repealing the aid elimination penalty.

Thanks for your attention to this important issue. I look forward to hearing your thoughts as soon as you have a chance to share them."

-- Michael Lakota

Tell Congress to help people like Michael: http://capwiz.com/mobilize/issues/alert/?alertID=9628286