Dude, where’s my loan?

COLLEGE KIDS WOULD BE BETTER OFF not taking drugs. They’d also be better off not drinking when they’re underage, not driving drunk at any age and generally not doing illegal and dangerous things. Most people (except certain college kids) would agree this makes sense.

But a federal law that singles out drug violations from other kinds of lawbreaking for special discipline doesn’t make any sense. A 1998 amendment to the Higher Education Act denies federal aid to students with drug convictions. That goes even for misdemeanor cases. But it doesn’t affect those who commit, say, sexual assault, burglary or, for that matter, murder.

The idea was to discourage drug use, though there’s no evidence the law has had any effect there. What it has done is deny college aid to almost 200,000 students, more than 30,000 of them in California. (Proportionately, even more of them are in Indiana. What’s that all about?) Untold numbers of others never apply, undoubtedly knowing they don’t stand a chance.

It is true, as supporters of the amendment say, that college aid is not an entitlement and that taxpayers have the right not to hand public favors to scofflaws. But this isn’t about lawbreaking; it’s about picking on one form of lawbreaking that appears to be especially offensive to Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.), who wrote the amendment. Drugs on campus are a problem, no argument there, but underage drinking to dangerous excess is at least equally pernicious.

The ACLU is going down the wrong path with a lawsuit against the drug amendment. It claims the law unfairly punishes poor and minority students, who are more likely to need college aid in the first place. But almost any restriction on federal funds has a disproportionate effect on the poor, and minority and needy students are as capable as anyone else of refraining from drug use.

The stronger argument against the Souder amendment is that it’s simply bad lawmaking -- ineffective at achieving its aims and inconsistent in its approach. Its only result has been to bar more people from college, and that doesn’t help a nation that needs all the college-educated young people it can get to compete in the global marketplace.

As Congress considers the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, it should eliminate this amendment, or at least revise it to affect only students who are convicted of a felony -- any felony. Laws should be fair and consistent. It doesn’t take a college education to see that.