https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/394/ederror.shtml

The US Department of Education web site regarding student financial aid applications contained false information that likely caused some would-be students to incorrectly think they were ineligible for federal student loans because they had a drug conviction. Under the Higher Education Act's anti-drug provision, authored by Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), students with drug convictions are not eligible for federal financial assistance, but the act contains provisions allowing some students to regain their eligibility, depending on the date and type of the conviction.

But that important proviso was not as prominent on the Education Department web site as a sentence that misstated things. Near the top of the FAQ, the document instead read that applicants "must not have any drug convictions." The correct information also appeared in the FAQ, but not until much further down in the document.

Students for Sensible Drug Policy, an organization which plays a major role in the campaign to repeal the drug provision, reported that it asked the department in early June to fix the error, with the department saying it would do so, but not until later this month. While SSDP couldn't get the department to budge by itself, the glare of public scrutiny could. When the Chronicle of Higher Education published an article about the error last Friday, after SSDP drew the magazine's attention to it, the department managed to get the incorrect information changed the next day.

Unfortunately for students interested in obtaining financial aid for the fall semester, that action came one day after the fall application deadline. More than 160,500 students with drug convictions have been denied financial aid under the anti-drug provision, but not all of them were necessarily ineligible.

"It's shameful that the Department of Education left this misinformation on the web until after the aid deadline and only acted when the press started calling," said SSDP executive director Scarlett Swerdlow. "There's no way to tell how many eligible students saw the Department of Education's webpage and didn't apply for aid because of this false information. The government should be in the business of providing accurate information to citizens, not misleading them about opportunities for education."

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