he American prison system will release
more than 600,000 prisoners this year — and half will commit new
crimes and be back in prison three years from now. There is at least
one proven way to break the cycle. Researchers have discovered and
rediscovered that inmates who earn college degrees tend to stay out
of jail. But former offenders have found it increasingly hard to
educate themselves and gear up for productive lives since Congress
began to cut them off from federal education aid in the 1990's.
Congress may be ready to consider at least a half-step back from
that mistake. Lawmakers may not be prepared to revisit the federal
ban that made convicted felons ineligible for Pell grants, the
federal tuition aid aimed primarily at poor and middle-income
students. But the House of Representatives is at least talking about
changing the 1998 law under which more than 140,000 students have
been turned down for federal student loans because of drug offenses,
some of which are minor and a decade old.
The law was not supposed to work this way. According to
Representative Mark Souder, the Indiana Republican who wrote the
measure, it was aimed only at students who committed drug crimes
while receiving federal loans. But the law has instead been applied
to every applicant with a drug conviction, even if the conviction
was so minor as to carry no jail time, and even if it occurred long
before the student ever envisioned going to college. Mr. Souder has
put forth a revised version of the law that would return to his
original intent.
That would be an improvement, but student aid should still not be
turned into a law enforcement weapon, particularly for those
convicted of minor offenses that a court would appropriately dismiss
with a fine or probation. Congress should repeal this law instead of
just tinkering with it. Beyond that, the country needs to back away
from all policies that prevent ex-convicts from attending college,
because college is the one sure way to get them back into the
mainstream and keep them out of jail.
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