South Carolina residents facing federal drug charges can potentially face a wide range of penalties, should those charges ultimately lead to convictions. Some of those penalties can have far-reaching effects on their personal and professional lives. If you are among those facing a federal drug charge and you are also a current recipient of financial aid, it is critical that you understand how a federal drug conviction could affect you.
While a federal drug conviction can leave you facing time in jail, steep financial penalties and other serious repercussions, it can also impact your ability to get financial assistance for schooling. This is also true of drug convictions that come at the state level, and both types of drug convictions can potentially hinder your academic and professional future.
Drug convictions and financial aid ineligibility
Just about any type of drug conviction at the state or federal level has the potential to impact your ability to receive financial aid, but there is a catch. To lose access to financial aid because of a drug conviction, your arrest for the drug-related crime must have occurred during a period when you were a current recipient of financial aid.
In other words, if your arrest took place in the summer, before you began receiving financial aid, your drug conviction should not impact your ability to utilize aid. If, however, you are in the middle of your college years, or your drug arrest occurred during a university sporting event, you can anticipate losing your ability to receive aid.
Length of ineligibility
How long you can you become ineligible for financial aid after a drug conviction? Ultimately, this will vary based on the severity of your drug crime and whether you have a history of committing similar crimes in your past. In some cases, you may become ineligible for aid for a period of one year. In other cases, though, you could potentially lose your ability to receive financial aid indefinitely.