[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 43 (Thursday, March 13, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2149-S2150]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. DODD:
  S. 2767. A bill to provide for judicial discretion regarding 
suspensions of student eligibility under section 484(r) of the Higher 
Education Act of 1965; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, 
and Pensions.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation to add 
judicial discretion to the Higher Education Act Aid Elimination 
Penalty. Since 1998 the law prevents any student convicted of 
possession of a controlled substance from receiving Federal financial 
aid.
  Since the penalty was enacted, approximately 200,000 low to middle
income students seeking a college education have been disqualified from 
receiving Federal financial assistance. In many cases, these are 
committed young people who simply want to make better lives for 
themselves. In order to be eligible for financial aid in the first 
place, these students have proven they can perform academically. 
Unfortunately, they have made the mistake many young people have made 
experimenting with drugs.
  Just like every Senator in this chamber, I want to help keep 
America's young people from making this mistake and jeopardizing their 
health and their futures. We should all work to enact policies that 
effectively deter dangerous drug use. But this is a sophisticated and 
complicated issue and it cannot be solved by blunt measures such as the 
Aid Elimination Penalty.

[[Page S2150]]

  Any drug abuse expert will tell you that helping someone get off of 
drugs or stay away from trying them requires a variety of approaches. 
In some cases the fear of consequences, such as the Aid Elimination 
Penalty, may be enough. But in many other cases, counseling, 
rehabilitation, and positive reinforcement may offer more effective 
ways to achieve this goal.
  Our laws should reflect the need for varied approaches. 
Unfortunately, the Aid Elimination Penalty does not. It is a blunt tool 
that sweeps all cases into the same one size fits all solution. There 
is little distinction under this law as to whether the drug possession 
is a major or minor violation and to what degree the infraction affects 
the community at large; Teenagers bowing to peer-pressure for the first 
time are treated the same as serious drug users disrupting their 
communities. This means that while in some cases we are penalizing 
chronic drug abusers, we are also penalizing good students who will 
mature and have a better chance of rectifying their mistakes by 
continuing their education.
  What is most disturbing is how the consequences of the penalty can 
negatively impact the course of a student's life. Many students 
affected by the Aid Elimination Penalty are forced to leave school 
since it is no longer affordable without financial assistance. Data 
from the National Center of Education Statistics demonstrates that many 
of these students will not continue their education: 36 percent of 
students who leave 4-year institutions do not return within 5 years and 
50 percent of students who leave 2-year institutions do not return 
within 5 years. For these students, denial of Federal college 
assistance will only force them from school, and may set them on an 
even more self destructive course of increased drug use and abuse. In 
these cases, the Aid Elimination Penalty actually backfires and serves 
to undermine our efforts to prevent the use and abuse of drugs.
  That is why I am introducing this legislation to insert judicial 
discretion into the current law. My bill would make the penalty 
dependent on the ruling of a judge, allowing them to weigh the value of 
implementing the penalty as part of other sanctions and punishments on 
a case by case basis. This will enable the judge to deny student 
financial aid if the situation merits it, and if he or she believes it 
is the most effective or even the only way to help a student get 
control of his or her life. This legislation would also grant judges 
the ability, based on the circumstances, to determine that continuation 
of a college education, in conjunction with rehabilitation and possibly 
other sanctions, offers both the student and the community the best 
possible outcome. This is the way the rest of the criminal justice 
system works and it is the way the Aid Elimination Penalty should be 
implemented. With this change we can fine tune our approach to this 
problem and minimize the negative unintended consequences of current 
law. I urge my colleagues to see the wisdom of this approach and help 
me to refine the law to be more effective in protecting our communities 
and ensuring deserving students the opportunity to advance their 
education.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be 
printed in the Record, as follows:

                                S. 2767

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. JUDICIAL DISCRETION FOR SUSPENSION OF ELIGIBILITY.

       Section 484(r) of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 
     U.S.C. 1091(r)) is amended--
       (1) in paragraph (1), by striking ``A student'' and 
     inserting ``Subject to paragraph (3), a student'';
       (2) by redesignating paragraph (3) as paragraph (4); and
       (3) by inserting after paragraph (2) the following:
       ``(3) Applicability.--This subsection shall only apply to a 
     student if the Federal or State court that convicted the 
     student of an offense described in paragraph (1) has ordered 
     that the student's eligibility for assistance under this 
     title be suspended in accordance with this subsection.''.
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