Marijuana Policy Project

WASHINGTON—Drug offenses, or refusal to answer questions about possible convictions, booted 8,903 Hoosier applicants out of contention for federal financial aid for college in the past six academic years, about one out of every 200 requests for grants or loans.

Students who are convicted of possessing or selling illegal drugs can lose all or part of their eligibility for the $67 million federal pool for grants, loans and work-study assistance under legislation written in the 1990s by Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd.

According to Department of Education statistics released Thursday by Students for Sensible Drug Policy, which has fought the Souder provisions since they were enacted, Hoosier students applied 1.7 million times since 2000 for federally backed financial aid for their college studies. Of those applications, 8,903 were fully or partly ineligible for aid because they had been convicted of a drug offense or refused to answer questions about possible convictions. Applicants who don't answer are automatically ineligible for federal scholarships and loans.

Because students apply for loans and grants each academic year, the 1.7 million figure does not refer to 1.7 million individual students. But the 8,903 figure represents separate individuals, according to Tom Angell, spokesman for Students for Sensible Drug Policy, because "it's unlikely that someone denied aid for X period of time would reapply before their eligibility was reinstated, knowing they'd just be denied again."

For a first drug-possession offense, ineligibility lasts a year after conviction; for a second offense, two years. More convictions bar aid indefinitely. A single drug sale conviction means no aid for two years afterward; more convictions, and the ban lasts indefinitely. The legislation was changed late last year so that only those convicted of drug offenses while they are enrolled in college lose eligibility.

The Department of Education has regularly released information about how many people were affected by the law, but the agency has not released state-by-state information. Students for Sensible Drug Policy sued to obtain the information.

According to the data, 189,065 applicants were completely or partly ineligible for aid since the law went into effect with the 2000-01 academic year, about one of every 400 applicants.

The Education Department's "numbers do not reveal how many students were deterred from even applying for financial aid because they saw the drug question on the ( financial aid application ) and assumed - correctly or incorrectly - that they were ineligible," according to Students for Sensible Drug Policy. "There is also no way to tell how many applicants falsely answered the question, since the Department of Education has no mechanism for catching students who lie. Thus, an indeterminate number of students are getting financial aid that they aren't legally eligible for because they refuse to admit to their past convictions" on the application form.