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Unfair drug law
Scholarship policy punishes students for crimes already handled by the courts
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Opinion
The Battalion
Page 11 * Friday, March 26, 2004
omething is horribly amiss when the gov
ernment will grant federal aid for educa
tion to violent offenders such as murder-
rs, rapists, arsonists, armed robbers and child
molesters, but not to a former drug offender
lying to get his life back on track. Something
not right when such a law affects drug
1.53 iMffenders from wealthy families very little
shile robbing those convicted of the same
rime in poorer families of the opportunity for
neducation. Something is terribly wrong with
law when its author has encouraged those who have suffered
rause of it to sue the government.
A provision enacted in October 1998 under the Higher
iducation Act bans past drug offenders from receiving student
inancial aid but does more harm than good and fails to accom-
sh the purpose for which it was originally established.
According to the provision, aid in the form of federal grants
ind loans is suspended for one year following a first drug offense
two years following the second. For students, this means that
is many as 26,000 applicants were refused assistance in 2003, not
Deluding those who never bothered to apply as a result of the
ile, University Wire reported.
Many of the would-be students were denied aid on account of
Img possessions for which they had already been punished and
lentenced years before. For them, the law did not deter drug use,
is was its intent, but rather in ex post facto style “end(ed) up dis-
mdi waging people from moving on with their lives,” as Michael
Dean, a Denver-based substance abuse counselor told The New
York Times. “At what point in our society do we say that a person
ipaid their debt?”
His concern is echoed by Jason Bell, a senior at San
Francisco State University who served almost 10 years in prison
for attempted murder and now assists other ex-convicts in get-
a higher education. Bell wonders how he managed to fund
Ige DjBiis education through federal loans and grants — without a
lat, u problem — while so many convicted of much more minor
crimes have such difficulty. ‘‘It’s a form of double jeopardy,” he
told the Times. “They do the time, but then there are still road
blocks when they finish. I don’t believe people should be pun
ished twice.”
The author of the law. Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., agrees. “It’s
on the face of it,” he told the Times.
Souder blames the Clinton and Bush administrations for the
■ misapplication of the law, saying they transformed it from its
, intended purpose of discouraging drug use among financial aid
recipients to a means of keeping reformed offenders from getting
s Rr;
Iness
an education, arguably the most essential factor in rising above a
life of drug use.
Education is especially important for poor students, if
they are to escape poverty and the lifestyle of crime
that so often accompanies it. These students are
hardest hit by the law, as wealthier students are
more likely to attend college, without federal aid.
The discrimination is intensified by the fact that
wealthy families are also more likely to avoid drug
convictions in the first place, as they can afford
more expensive legal counsel, according to
University Wire.
In defense of the provision, proponents cite the
stipulation that students can regain aid through
attending drug treatment. However, many treat
ment programs are as expensive as a year of
college, coverage by private insurance compa
nies is scant and in some states such as
Connecticut, subsidies for inpatient youth treat
ment have been virtually eliminated, as report
ed by The Associated Press. “If I couldn’t
afford to pay for school, then how was I sup
posed to pay for these programs?” one student
said to the Times.
Congress is scheduled to clarify the law, as the pres
ident’s latest budget includes a commitment for its
revision. According to the proposed change, the
law would then apply only to students already in
college when the offense was committed. Though
this revised law would be better than the first, it
would continue to discriminate against poor
offenders and hinder small or first-time offenders
from finishing their educations in a move more
conducive to perpetuating their drug use than end
ing it.
As Jen Choi points out in The Lantern, Ohio State
University’s newspaper, both the current law and the pro
posed revision must be abandoned as they are contrary to the
“ultimate goal of the Higher Education Act, to make college
more accessible to all students; not more difficult.”
Lindsay Orman is a senior
English major.
Graphic by Ivan Flores.
The price is right
Texas A&M students should be happy to get such an education at bargain pricing
Here
et’s get one thing
straight: Texas A&M is
/cheap. In fact, state
in the South are
nostall dirt-cheap in com-
rison to universities in other
of the country.
are a few examples
|ofundergraduate costs at
ne major universities
the United States:
University of Oregon students pay $6,500 for
uition and fees per term. University of Illinois
|atUrbana-Champaign charges its students
^3,500 for tuition and fees per semester.
University of Minnesota charges $3,000 for
uition alone per semester. The University of
CAlifornia-Santa Barbara charges $4984 for
uition, and even The University of Texas at
\ustin costs $3210 for just tuition.
Yes, this is how much other students actually
|)ay to attend college in their home states. Those
osts hardly seem feasible to the student com
plaining about A&M’s going rate of about
$2,400 for tuition and per semester.
Keep in mind that all of these examples rep
resent the state resident rates at public schools.
The above-mentioned costs do
not even take into considera
tion the expensive private
schools of this country.
Some students say the
University is “getting them”
— not on tuition, but when it
comes to the seemingly ridicu
lous fee statements. It’s time
for people to realize that Mary
Poppins does not take care of
them at college. Services do
cost money. Even if University
officials are screwing over the
It's time for people
to realize that Mary
Poppins does not take
care of them at college.
Services do cost money.
students when it comes to fees, the costs are
still extremely low. An unfair extra $200 fee on
a student’s bill is much better than an extra
$3,000 of tuition.
Gasps came earlier this year when
University President Robert M. Gates
announced a potential tuition fee increase for
the upcoming fall semester. The $19.50 fee
increase would be added to the current $101
per credit hour fee, bringing
the total to $120.50 per credit
hour, or $1807.5 per semester
for the average student.
According to The Battalion,
Gates said that one of the rea
sons for the fee increase was
because of a decrease in state
funding. And with more faculty
being hired, it is understandable
that the University needs more
money to pay salaries.
Although the potential fee
increase is quite significant per-
having smaller class sizes, especially when
compared to how much money other universi
ties charge.
Amid the grumblings and screams of protest,
there are some students who are reasonable.
Mike. Deck, a junior computer science major,
says that as of now, he thinks he is getting his
money’s worth at A&M. Referring to the
University’s plan to hire more faculty, Deck
goes on to say “I would rather see tuition raised
than the quality of the education diminish.”
If students don’t have money or scholarships
or parents’ money, there are such things called
student loans. Although an education at A&M
is dirt cheap, it’s never going to be free, so stop
complaining.
centage-wise, it is still a small amount. Under
the potential fee increase for the fall, an under
graduate 14-hour load would be just $273 more
than it would have been this semester. Two hun
dred and seventy three dollars is well worth
David Ege is a junior
computer engineering major.
The misuse by a few
(shouldn't kill cloning
In response to Josh Langston’s
larch 22 column:
Josh Langston seems to think that
Ihe best way to avoid the costs of
peveloping cloning technology is to
psregard the benefits it would have
lor the prevention and treatment of
pease. I think that research, con-
pucted thoughtfully and judiciously, is
an opportunity that should not be
(thrown away.
Langston points out, quite validly,
hat cloning technology could fall into
he wrong hands. However, this can
be said about any technological
advancement in the course of human
pistory. I doubt that early experi-
nenters with saltpeter knew the vari
ety of uses gunpowder would have.
Every technology has its cost. He
asserts that once a threshold is
pressed, society cannot turn back.
Again, I agree with him. We cannot
poback, but we are not condemning
ourselves to a genetic wasteland by
choosing to investigate further the
possibilities of genetics.
I do not doubt that perfection in
biology cannot be found. However,
we have the opportunity for knowl
edge, and should make the best of
that opportunity.
Rebecca Wilson
Class of 2003
The Spanish people
did not want war
In response to Mike Walters’ March
23 column:
As a Spanish Aggie, I am disap
pointed in Mr. Walters’ simplistic and
misleading “analysis” of the chain of
events taking place in Spain since
March 11. Sadly, his point of view is
representative of many. It seems that
a few days’ worth of one-minute
blurbs on a couple of major news
MAIL CALL
channels have convinced people that
they now have enough information to
give their “informed take” on the situ
ations in other countries.
Never mind that when Jose Maria
Aznar decided to join the United
States in this war, he did so against
the will of as much as 90 percent of
the population. Never mind that
Aznar’s administration tried to mis
lead everybody there into thinking
that the bombings were committed
by ETA for his own political gain.
Never mind the record voter turnout.
Dismissing this reaction as cow
ardice only takes steps to prove the
stereotype of the absurdly ethnocen
tric American to be true.
The problem isn’t that the terrorists
won a battle at the expense of cow
ards, the problem is the fact that the
vast majority of the people of the
world knew better than to go to war in
Iraq in the first place, and it’s finally
starting to come back to the politi
cians of the world in the form of dem
ocratically chosen change.
When peace-loving people are mis
represented or misled by their lead
ers into invading a country that does
n’t actually pose a threat to them
instead of attacking the actual terror
ists who did them harm, everybody
suffers the consequences. The politi
cians only lose their jobs.
Que viva el espiritu de la democ-
racia!
Carlos Delclos
Class of 2005
Don't judge students
by their organization
In response to a March 25 mall call:
Apparently, Ms. Gray has only met
a portion of the Corps to say that
they are more dedicated to Texas
A&M than non-regs. I have friends
who are in the Corps, and they are
the most dedicated men I know.
However, I have also met those in the
Corps who know about our traditions,
but do not believe in them. They are
in the Corps for whatever reason they
need to be, and I respect them for
that. That shows a dedication to
something bigger than any one per
son.
I do not agree, however, that just
because someone is in the Corps of
Cadets that they are more dedicated
than a non-reg. I was fortunate
enough to meet quite a few people
this past fall by participating in
Student Bonfire who are more dedi
cated to the University than some of
the members of the Corps I have
met. The Corps, as with a fair number
of other things around campus, has
those who love this school with
everything they have, and I’m lucky
enough to know some of them.
As with other organizations, there
are also those who have various
other reasons, personal or not for
being in the Corps. All I ask is that
you not question a person’s dedica
tion to this school based on the sim
ple fact that they are not in a certain
organization or program.
Brandon Talbott
Class of 2007