WASHINGTON – When 20-year-old Nathan Bush was pulled over in Kenosha last October with drug paraphernalia plainly visible in his car, he lost his driver’s license – and tens of thousands of dollars in financial aid.
Bush, an incoming junior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said he could have been slapped with the far more serious charge of possession of marijuana, but instead had all of his federal dollars taken away in courtroom negotiations.
….As part of this year’s reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, which a congressional committee is expected to consider this week, the so-called “retroactivity clause” could be repealed – in other words, the government could no longer legally withhold tuition assistance from students who were convicted of drug-related offenses before they filed their first application.