Colo. Past Criminal Convictions A Barrier To College Admissions

GOLDEN, CO – By Alex Burness for The Colorado Independent. Majid Mohammad knows first-hand what a criminal record can do to your self-esteem.

Mohammed, who served seven years behind bars for robbery, wanted to go to the University of Colorado-Boulder to study engineering. He had filled out most of the lengthy application when he came to the question about past felonies.

“I got through the whole thing and then I got to the question,” said Mohammad, now 24, “and I stopped because I thought it was an automatic barrier to me being accepted.”

It’s not. People who admit to having a criminal record on college applications are not automatically screened out by admissions offices. But the problem is that people like Mohammad are all too often removing themselves from contention: one State University of New York study found that about two-thirds of people with previous felony convictions dropped out of college application processes after being asked about their records.

“It’s not like you’re applying and getting denied, but … people are scared to apply,” said Mohammad, who later did apply and was admitted at the Colorado School of Mines.

That same fear exists for job applicants, research shows, and it inspired the “ban the box” movement, which seeks to prohibit public- and private-sector employers from asking prospective hirees to check little boxes on initial job applications to indicate whether they have criminal histories. Colorado could this year become the 12th state to adopt such a prohibition.

READ MORE in The Colorado Independent.