Impending Vote On Student Aid Ban For Drug Convictions
The House Education and Workforce Committee will be voting today on an amendment by Rep. Rob Andrews (D-NJ) to completely repeal the Higher Education Act Drug Provision. The Andrews amendment would reinstate financial aid to all of the more than 160,500 students who have been affected by this misguided law.
Contact your legislators and tell them to support the Andrews amendment to scrap the Drug Provision once and for all. Click here to take action now.
This will be the first time Congress has revisited the Drug Provision since it was slipped into the Higher Education Act Reauthorization as an amendment in 1998. Since then, more than 160,000 students with drug convictions have been blocked access to federal financial aid.
In 1998, this amendment quietly became law without debate or recorded vote. Now, seven years later, we finally have a chance to get members on the record about whether or not they truly want to help at-risk young people get the education they need to live productive lives and be responsible citizens.
Editorials in the New York Times and Minneapolis Star Tribune today explain how cutting student aid will foster crime and why we need to make it easier, not harder, for drug offenders to get an education.
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