Who this affects

Arrest records and college

Checked 2026-08-25

Federal law forces a campus arrest into public view while shielding the university's own file on the same incident — the police log is public by regulation, the disciplinary record is not.

The public log, and the sealed file

Under the Clery Act regulation at 34 CFR § 668.46(f), an institution with a campus police or security department must record the nature, date, time and general location of each reported crime and its disposition, must add entries within two business days, and must make the most recent 60-day period open to public inspection during business hours.

Meanwhile 34 CFR § 99.8 puts law enforcement unit records outside FERPA entirely — the regulation states that FERPA neither requires nor prohibits their disclosure. So the campus police report about you is not shielded, while the disciplinary file about the same incident is.

Clery statistics compound it: § 668.46(c)(1)(ii) requires institutions to disclose arrests for liquor law, drug law and weapons violations as a mandatory category. Arrests are counted. Convictions are not a category at all.

Admissions has moved in your favour

The Common Application removed the criminal history question from the shared application effective the 2019-20 cycle, and removed the school discipline question effective 2021-22. One caveat carried in the same announcement: member institutions may still collect criminal history on their own member screens.

Federal student aid no longer asks. The FAFSA Simplification Act eliminated both the drug conviction and Selective Service questions; the Department removed them from the form for the 2023-24 award year. There is no drug-conviction aid bar today.

Several states bar the question outright at public institutions — Louisiana, Maryland and Washington among them. Colorado's version is worth reading closely if you are applying there: it bars asking about criminal history generally, then expressly preserves the ability to ask about pending criminal charges. A case still open is treated differently from one that closed.

What removal work does for a student

It does not touch the Clery log, the campus disciplinary file or a court record. Those are governed by their own rules.

It addresses what an admissions officer, a landlord, an internship coordinator or a future employer finds when they search your name — the aggregator copies and the local coverage that outlive the case by years. For a student that surface is disproportionately damaging, because there is very little else under your name to outweigh it, and because the timeline of your career means it sits there the longest.

The aid rule moved further than most guides say

Two details of the financial aid change get left out, and both matter if you were told something different a couple of years ago.

The first is the transition. The drug conviction and Selective Service questions were repealed in law well before they left the paper — institutions were instructed to disregard the answers from the 2021-22 award year while the questions physically remained on the form through 2022-23. So a student who answered honestly in that window, and was told it counted, was told wrong.

The second is bigger. From July 2023, Pell Grant eligibility was restored for confined and incarcerated students in approved prison education programmes — the first time since the 1994 crime bill that incarcerated students could receive Pell at all. If you or someone advising you is working from pre-2023 guidance on aid and criminal history, essentially all of it is out of date.

None of that touches the campus layer, which is where a student's exposure actually sits, and which is governed by rules that did not change.

Common questions

Does my college have to report my arrest?

Arrests for liquor, drug and weapons violations are a mandatory Clery statistics category, and campus police must log reported crimes within two business days with 60 days open to public inspection. That is aggregate and log-level rather than a public accusation, but it is public.

Do I have to disclose an arrest on a college application?

The Common App removed the question, but individual member colleges may still ask on their own screens, and several states bar the question at public institutions. Colorado bars most of it while still permitting questions about pending charges.

Will this affect my financial aid?

The drug conviction question was removed from the FAFSA; there is no longer a drug-conviction eligibility bar.

Try the free route first

Google removes your home address, phone number, email and — since February 2026 — government ID numbers at no cost. More than 10 million people have used it. It does not cover arrest records, and it will not touch a government or newspaper page, but it is free and it is worth running first.

Open Google’s Results about you tool

Sources

Every claim on this page traces to the sources above, checked on 2026-08-25. Rules in this area change — several of the ones on this page changed in the last three years. If you find something here that is out of date, tell us and we will fix it.