In the next few months, there are likely to be tens of thousands more students in Selkirk's situation. Under a law passed in 1998, which is being fully enforced for the first time by the Bush administration, students convicted on drug charges become ineligible for federal financial aid and loans for one year after a possession conviction or for two years after a conviction for selling drugs unless they undergo a rehabilitation program that includes two random urine tests.
Repeat offenders can face permanent loss of federal assistance to attend college.
No other crime carries such a provision. Others complain that the law has a bias against the poor, who rely on the aid, and blacks, who make up a disproportionate percentage of those arrested on drug charges. Though about 13 percent of the people taking illicit drugs are black, the same as their proportion in the general population, blacks represent 55 percent of the drug convictions, said David Borden, executive director of the Drug Reform Coordination Network. Another 279,000 left blank the question about drug offenses and were given the aid anyway. The Department of Education is instructing students that answering is mandatory and that it will deny aid to students who ignore the question.