Update, January 12, 2021: On December 27, 2020, 10 days after the publication of this calendar, the 2021 consolidated finance law was promulgated. The joint omnibus budget bill and the COVID-19 relief bill have made significant changes to the higher education law, especially with regard to the eligibility for financial aid of criminally convicted students . The calendar has been updated to reflect these changes.

Federal lawmakers determine which students receive financial aid for college, and perhaps no population has been seen as deserving less aid than criminal convicted college students. The timeline below represents each time the federal financial aid eligibility rules have been changed for these students, and the trend is clear: Since the 1960s, federal lawmakers have repeatedly sought to restrict the access to financial aid for students with certain criminal convictions and for students in prison. Congress has extended aid to these students only a few times, mainly in recent years. Now, as momentum builds to restore Pell Grants to students in prison and remove the drug conviction issue from the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), this timeline clearly shows that it will not be. not easy to reverse the trend in the long term. to withdraw financial aid from these students.

Background

The Higher Education Act 1965, which created the basis for current federal needs-based grants and student loans, contained no eligibility restrictions based on the applicant’s criminal record. Students in prison benefited from these early programs, especially following the creation of the Basic Education Access Grant, later renamed the Pell Grant, in 1972. A new stream of financial aid federal government has fueled the development of new higher education programs in prison. Surveys show that the number of adult prisons offering post-secondary education grew up from 46 in 1967 to 218 in 1973. Shortly after these aid programs were created, however, lawmakers began to impose further restrictions on criminally convicted students, ultimately resulting in the loss of loan and eligibility. to Pell scholarships for all students in prison.

Each event on the timeline below represents a change in financial aid eligibility for students with criminal convictions. Changes made by Congress are designated by the title of the federal law in which the new eligibility rules were created, for example, the Higher Education Amendments of 1968. All other changes are administrative actions taken by the US Department of Education. Policies marked with an asterisk

remain in effect for students from 2020.