Second chances in life are important.

At a point in each of our lives, we are going to hope that someone will turn a blind eye to what we have done or look past it to see how we have worked hard to rehabilitate ourselves.

We all make bad decisions and have had our personal demons in life. Turning away from those destructive forces to say, “I’m going to make something out of my life,” is the first and most important step of the rest of each person’s life who may not be on the right path.

However, Congress’ lifting of the financial aid ban for students with drug convictions comes at a poor time.

Congress, in its infinite wisdom, should have considered that the lifting of the ban would be around the same time as billions of dollars are cut from the financial aid budget.

Good timing!

This cut, on top of adding more students to the pool looking for financial aid, will make the competition for the remaining money even more fierce than it already is.

Students from all backgrounds who have worked and kept clean compete for the money so they can get a chance to go to college.

They have made the right decisions and should be rewarded before others who have possibly sold or used drugs in the past, at least for right now.

With a better financial aid system in place that analyzes each person on a one-by-one basis, perhaps the most deserving students, drug convictions or not, could earn their place in college.

As it stands now, a student from a middle-class background whose parents may have a comfortable income, but has to pay their way through life is denied financial aid because of their parents’ income.

A student whose parents have had to scrape together every last penny and who has beaten the odds fails to pass through the financial aid system, because of a lack of government funds.

A couple of the many flaws in the system.

It is sad that in the country with the greatest universities, we have to put such foolish and superficial requisites on our selection for who can go to college and who cannot.

Everybody deserves a second chance, but people who have worked hard their entire life and kept themselves clean should perhaps be given a first chance first.