[Mb-civic] Drug war mistargets students - Amos Irwin - Boston Globe

[William Swiggard]

Drug war mistargets students

By Amos Irwin  |  September 3, 2005

AS COLLEGE students around the country return to campus this fall, 
thousands of their peers won't be joining them because of a federal law 
that strips financial aid from students with drug convictions.

The policy is up for reconsideration this month as Senator Edward M. 
Kennedy and other members of the US Senate Health, Education, Labor, and 
Pensions Committee restructure the Higher Education Act for the first 
time in seven years.

While the 1965 law was intended to make higher education more accessible 
and affordable to Americans, the drug provision -- added during a 1998 
reauthorization -- is an unjustifiable roadblock in the path to college. 
Over the past seven years, more than 175,000 students have lost their 
financial aid because of it.

The law not only victimizes students trying to turn their lives around 
with a college education, it also makes our streets less safe and hurts 
our economy.

People coming out of prison are much less likely to return to illegal 
activities, including drug use, if they enter higher education. 
According to the Correctional Education Association, only 10 percent of 
prisoners who receive at least two years of higher education are 
arrested again, compared with a general rearrest rate of about 60 
percent. Blocking education to ex-offenders only condemns them to lives 
without the financial opportunities made possible by college degrees and 
makes them more likely to repeat bad choices made in the past.

Public policies should encourage people who have been in trouble with 
drugs to move beyond their past mistakes, but the drug provision 
endangers their chances of becoming productive citizens. Graduating more 
students from college means greater economic productivity and increased 
tax revenue, while locking up more inmates means taxpayers must pay the 
bill for skyrocketing criminal justice costs. Blocking education for 
determined students is fiscally irresponsible.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/09/03/drug_war_mistargets_students/
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