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Maryland Financial Aid Bill
Currently students in Maryland who have lost their federal financial aid because of drug convictions are also losing their state aid even though the state legislature never voted to penalize them. This is happening because the Maryland Higher Education Commission relies mechanistically on the federal financial aid form (FAFSA), and if the US Dept. of Education finds someone ineligible, MHEC also finds them ineligible regardless of what the federal government's reason was. Maryland House Bill 283 would require that the Maryland Higher Education Commission NOT deny financial aid to would-be students simply because they are federally ineligible, if the standard that triggered the federal ineligibility is more stringent than the state's standards. Basically, it would take MHEC off of auto-pilot and establish that it is the legislature that sets the financial aid policies.
Dear [ Decision Maker ] , Please pass HB 283, a bill sponsored by Del. Ana Sol Gutierrez to take the Maryland Higher Education Commission off of auto-pilot. Currently MHEC can deny state financial aid to thousands of would-be Maryland students, for reasons that our legislature never approved but which carry over indirectly from the federal financial aid system. HB 283 would simply require something that most Maryland citizens probably take for granted to be the case, that our state's executive branch should not create harsher penalties or restrictions than they have been directly authorized to do. I believe that Maryland's legislature should decide who is eligible to receive aid under our own, state-funded financial aid programs, not the federal government, and not MHEC for the sake of a minor administrative convenience. The most well-known example of this problem is a federal law that delays or denies would-be students their financial aid for any drug conviction, no matter how minor. This unwise law, which is opposed by over 330 organizations, pushes people away from the path of recovery at the very time that the need for them to take a positive step is the greatest. The law punishes a group of people for a second time who have already been punished once by the criminal justice system. And while race-neutral in its writing, it extends the unresolved racial disparities in the criminal justice system (such as racial profiling) onto the higher education financing system. School officials and judges already have a range of responses available to them when students are found guilty of drug or other infractions, and we should allow them to use that discretion in ways that match the individual circumstances of each case that comes before them. Maryland's legislature wisely wrote its statutes in a way that allows for this to be the case. HB 283 will restore that important discretion. Passing HB 283 does not create a new state benefit; it merely tells MHEC that they may not discriminate against one class of applicants for state-funded scholarships for reasons not authorized by the Maryland General Assembly.
Sincerely, |
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| Background Information |
Please help pass HB 283, a bill sponsored by Del. Ana Sol Gutierrez to take the Maryland Higher Education Commission off of auto-pilot. Currently MHEC is denying aid to thousands of would-be Maryland students, for reasons that the Maryland legislature never approved but which appear in the US federal code.
HB 283 would simply require something that most Maryland citizens probably take for granted to be the case, that the state's executive branch should not create harsher penalties or restrictions than they have been directly authorized to do. Maryland's legislature should decide who is eligible to receive aid under the state's own financial aid programs, not the federal government, and not MHEC for the sake of a minor administrative convenience.
The most well-known example of this problem is a federal law that delays or denies would-be students their financial aid for any drug conviction, no matter how minor. This unwise law, which is opposed by over 330 organizations, pushes people away from the path of recovery at the very time that the need for them to take a positive step is the greatest. The law punishes a group of people for a second time who have already been punished once by the criminal justice system. And while race-neutral in its writing, it extends the unresolved racial disparities in the criminal justice system (such as racial profiling) onto the higher education financing system.
School officials and judges already have a range of responses available to them when students are found guilty of drug or other infractions, and MHEC should allow them to use that discretion in ways that match the individual circumstances of each case that comes before them. Maryland's legislature wisely wrote its statutes in a way that allows for this to be the case. HB 283 will restore that important discretion.
Passing HB 283 does not create a new state benefit; it merely tells MHEC that they may not discriminate against one class of applicants for unauthorized reasons.