Posted on: Sunday, April 22, 2001

Let colleges determine student's worthiness

The Bush administration is right — narrowly construed — to begin enforcing a law denying federal financial aid to college students with drug convictions.

The Clinton administration basically winked at the law — because the law caused a backlog of 1 million applications. The procedural mess aside, we wonder if it's wise for Congress to stand in the way of young people with a mistake in their past.

Perhaps it would be wiser for Congress to leave the evaluation of a student with a checkered past to the college admissions process. It should be enough that the judicial system has punished them for their drug convictions; Congress needn't punish them twice.