dissenting.
In 1980, after a 5-year suspension, the United States Government reinstituted registration for military service. By Presidential Proclamation, all men born after January 1, 1960, were required to register with the Selective Service System within 30 days of their 18th birthday.1 The issue in this case is not whether Congress has authority to implement the law, but whether the method it has chosen to do so offends constitutional guarantees of individual rights. I conclude that § 12(f) fails to pass constitutional muster on two grounds. First, it compels self-incrimination, in violation of *863the Fifth Amendment. Second, it violates the right to equal protection of the laws guaranteed under the Due Process Clause of that Amendment.
I
At the time of the enactment of the statute before the Court today, Congress understood that, of the draft-eligible population of 9,039,000 men, some 674,000 had failed to register, and many more registrants had failed to provide current mailing addresses.2 Explanations for this widespread dereliction of legal duty have been as varied as the proposals to obtain full compliance. Testifying at oversight hearings, Government officials have told Congress that most non-registrants are “uninformed of the requirement or are unaware of the importance of registration,”3 while only “a relatively small number of nonregistrants have ‘knowingly’ neglected their duty.”4 Private organizations have testified that noncompliance with the Selective Service law “is grounded in registration’s violation of individual conscience and its infringement of religious freedom”;5 that they oppose *864draft registration as a “massive government surveillance system” in which the Government collects, stores, and exchanges data on individuals in violation of constitutional and statutory rights;6 and that many cannot register as a matter of conscience because current regulations prohibit them from adjudicating their conscientious objector status prior to induction.7
Both the agency and Congress have crafted strategies to increase compliance with the law, such as increasing publicity programs, declaring a grace period when nonregistrants could comply without fear of prosecution, and posting lists of registrants in their local post offices.8 To identify and locate nonregistrants, Selective Service has collected Social Security numbers on draft registration forms, and located nonregistrants through computer data bank sharing with the Department of Health and Human Services and through mail forwarding by the Internal Revenue Service.9 Several per*865sons have been prosecuted for their failure to register, and the names of others have been forwarded to the Department of Justice for investigation and possible prosecution; the attendant publicity is seen by the agency as an effective method of communicating the duty to register and the seriousness of the failure to do so.10
It is in this context that Congress considered and adopted the statute before the Court, which was introduced on the floor by Representative Solomon and Senator Hayakawa as a rider to the Department of Defense Authorization Act of 1983. Section 1113(a) added a new subsection to the “Offenses and Penalties” section of the Military Selective Service Act. 50 U. S. C. App. § 462(f). The statute creates ineligibility for any form of assistance or benefit provided under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U. S. C. § 1070 et seq.) for any person required to register who fails to do so, 50 U. S. C. App. § 462(f)(1), and requires those persons to file with their postsecondary institution a “statement of compliance” with the draft registration requirement, 50 U. S. C. App. §453. § 462(f)(2). As the Court holds today, the purpose of this statute was not to penalize. nonregis-trants, but to encourage compliance with the legal duty to provide information to the Selective Service System.
*866It is tempting to succumb to the comfortable conclusions the majority draws after its glancing review of this legislation. After all, the Government has an explicit constitutional duty to provide for the common defense. “[I]n a free society,” as Congress has declared, “the obligations and privileges of serving in the armed forces and the reserve components thereof should be shared generally, in accordance with a system of selection which is fair and just . . . .” § 451(c). The statute at issue has something to do with promoting full compliance with the registration law, which in turn promotes fairness in allocating burdens in the event of reinstitution of involuntary induction. Much of the legislative rhetoric promoting § 12(f) seems unexceptional: youth should accept the obligations as well as the privileges of a democracy.11 Nevertheless, mindful that “[i]t is the duty of courts to be watchful for the constitutional rights of the citizen, and against any stealthy encroachments thereon,” Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 634-635 (1886), I must dissent.
II
I do not have to disagree with the majority that § 12(f) does not violate the constitutional prohibition against bills of attainder. That holding depends on construing the statute to permit late registration, ante, at 849-851, which in turn depends on construing Congress’ intent as encouragement of compliance with the Selective Service registration requirement. Ante, at 854. The majority emphasizes the “non-punitive spirit” of the legislation implicit in the fact that Congress “allowed all nonregistrants to qualify for Title IV aid simply by registering late.” Ante, at 855. Congress did not, however, grant immunity from criminal prosecution for that act of late registration. Absent such a grant, § 12(f) must be struck because it compels self-incrimination.
The Fifth Amendment privilege against coerced self-incrimination extends to every means of government infor*867mation gathering. Lefkowitz v. Turley, 414 U. S. 70, 77 (1973); Murphy v. Waterfront Comm'n, 378 U. S. 52, 90 (1964) (White, J., concurring); Counselman v. Hitchcock, 142 U. S. 547, 562 (1892). In our regulatory state, the line between permissible conditioning of the Government’s taxing and spending power and impermissible Government coercion of information that presents a real threat of self-incrimination is not easy to identify. But I am confident the line has been crossed here.12
I do not take issue with the majority’s conclusion, ante, at 856-857, that the Title IV application process itself does not require a student to divulge incriminating information to the educational institution.13 The neutrality of this compliance verification system is central to the majority’s acceptance of the permissible, regulatory purpose of the statute. However, our inquiry cannot stop there. Although § 12(f) does not coerce an admission of nonregistration, it does coerce registration with the Selective Service System, and hence individual reporting of self-incriminatory information directly to the Federal Government.
If appellees were to register with Selective Service now so that they could submit statements of compliance to obtain financial aid for their schooling, they would still be in violation of federal law, for, by registering late, they would not have submitted to registration “in accordance with any proclamation” issued under § 3 of the Military Selective Service Act, *86850 U. S. C. App. § 453. § 462(f)(1). Failure to comply with Selective Service registration requirements within 30 days of one’s 18th birthday is a felony, punishable by imprisonment for up to five years and/or a fine of up to $10,000. 50 U. S. C. App. § 462(a).
A student who registers late provides the Government with two crucial links in the chain of evidence necessary to prosecute him criminally. Cf. Marchetti v. United States, 390 U. S. 39, 48, and n. 9 (1968). First, he supplies the Government with proof of two elements of a violation: his birth date and date of registration. Second, and perhaps more importantly, he calls attention to the fact that he is one of the 674,000 young men in technical violation of the Military Selective Service Act. Armed with these data, the Government need prove only that the student “knowingly” failed to register at the time prescribed by law in order to obtain a conviction. 50 U. S. C. App. § 462(a). When students, such as appellees in this case, have acknowledged their awareness of their legal duty to register, App. 11-12, 24-25, the Government could prosecute the commission of a felony.
There can be little doubt that a late registration creates a “real and appreciable” hazard of incrimination and prosecution, and that the risk is not “so improbable that no reasonable man would suffer it to influence his conduct.” Brown v. Walker, 161 U. S. 591, 599-600 (1896). In their brief to this Court, for example, the appellants explicitly acknowledge that, although “failure to register within [30 days of one’s 18th birthday] does not disqualify the registrant for Title IV aid, it is a criminal offense punishable under 50 U. S. C. App. (& Supp. V) 462.” Brief for Appellants 17, n. 7. The Government thus appears to reserve the right to úse information obtained by the leverage of withholding education aid as a basis for criminal prosecution. Communications with registering men convey the same message. For example, both the “Registration Form,” SSS Form 1, and the “Acknowledgement Letter,” SSS Form 3A, which is mailed to men as legal proof of compliance with Selective Service *869registration requirements, advise registrants that the information they have provided “may be furnished to the . . . Department of Justice — for review and processing of suspected violations of the Military Selective Service Act . . . [and to the] Federal Bureau of Investigation — for location of an individual when suspected of violation of the Military Selective Service Act.” Finally, recent Government actions have acknowledged the realistic potential for prosecution. For example, President Reagan declared a “grace period” in the first months of 1982, in which men could register without penalty.14 The obvious implication of this declaration is that once the grace period expires, late registrants will be prosecuted. All of these governmental actions confirm the serious risk of self-incrimination and prosecution inherent in the act of late registration.15
*870Having established that late registration is an incriminating act, the question to be asked is whether the Government has exercised its powers in a way that deprives appellees of the freedom to refrain from self-incrimination through late registration. Garrity v. New Jersey, 385 U. S. 493, 496 (1967); Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U. S. 1, 8 (1964). When the Government extracts incriminating information by the leverage of the threat of penalties, including the “threat of substantial economic sanction,” Lefkowitz v. Turley, 414 U. S., at 82-83, the information is not volunteered. Thus, our cases have found coercion in statutes that extracted information through the threat of termination of state employment, Garrity v. New Jersey, supra; Uniformed Sanitation Men Assn., Inc. v. Commissioner of Sanitation, 392 U. S. 280 (1968); Gardner v. Broderick, 392 U. S. 273 (1968), through the threat of exclusion of a person from a profession, Spevack v. Klein, 385 U. S. 511 (1967), or through the threat of exclusion from participation in government contracts, Lefkowitz v. Turley, supra.
The threat of the denial of student aid is substantial economic coercion, and falls within the ambit of these cases. For students who had received federal education aid before enactment of § 12(f), termination of aid is coercive because it could force these students to curtail their studies, thereby forfeiting their investment in prior education and abandoning their hopes for obtaining a degree. Five of the six appellees in these cases fall into this category. App. 11-12, 24-25. Students who have not previously received federal aid may also be coerced by § 12(f). All students understand that entry into most professions and technical trades requires postsecondary education. For students who cannot otherwise afford this education, compliance with § 12(f) is coerced by the threat of foreclosing future employment opportunities. All of the appellees have stated that their own career plans require them to complete a college education. Ibid.; see also id., at 16, 29.
*871By withholding federal aid and the opportunity to obtain postsecondary education, § 12(f) levies a substantial burden on students who have failed to register with the Selective Service System. This statutory provision coerces students into incriminating themselves by filing late registration forms. As the Court noted in Garrity v. New Jersey, supra, at 497, the “option to lose their means of livelihood or to pay the penalty of self-incrimination is the antithesis of free choice to speak out or to remain silent.” I therefore completely agree with appellees that this enforcement mechanism violates the Fifth Amendment’s proscription against self-incrimination as interpreted in our previous cases, and would strike the provision down on this ground alone.16
Moreover, I do not understand the Court today to dispute that § 12(f) raises serious Fifth Amendment problems. The Court concedes that it would be incriminating for appellees to register with the Selective Service now. Ante, at 857. The Court furthermore strongly suggests that appellees could exercise their Fifth Amendment rights if they did register, cf. Garner v. United States, 424 U. S. 648 (1976), and that the Government could not compel their answers at that point without immunization. Ante, at 858.17 The majority incor*872rectly assumes, however, that appellees must claim their privilege against self-incrimination before they can raise a Fifth Amendment claim in this lawsuit. What the majority fails to recognize is that it would be just as incriminating for appellees to exercise their privilege against self-incrimination when they registered as it would be to fill out the form without exercising the privilege.18 The barrier to prosecuting Military Selective Service Act violators is not so much the Government’s inability to discover a birth date or date of registration as the difficulty in identifying the 674,000 nonregistrants. The late registrant who “takes the Fifth” on SSS Form 1 calls attention to himself as much as, if not more than, a late registrant who marks down his birth date and date of registration.
In Marchetti v. United States, 390 U. S. 39 (1968), and the related case of Grosso v. United States, 390 U. S. 62 (1968), the Court faced a similar situation, in which complying with a federal registration requirement was the practical equivalent of confessing to a crime. In those cases, federal law required persons engaged in the business of accepting wagers to register and pay an occupational and excise tax. Compliance did not exempt the gambler from any penalties for conducting his business, which was widely prohibited under federal and state law, and the information obtained if he did comply was readily available to assist the authorities in enforcing those penalties. Petitioners failed to file the re*873quired forms because they feared that they would be prosecuted for gambling if they revealed their activities to the Federal Government; they were convicted of willful failure to do so. The Court reversed the convictions, holding invalid a “statutory system . . . utilized to pierce the anonymity of citizens engaged in criminal activity.” Grosso v. United States, supra, at 76 (Brennan, J., concurring). The Court recognized that by filing an incomplete form, or explicitly invoking their Fifth Amendment privilege on the form itself, petitioners would incriminate themselves by informing the Government that they were involved in illegal gambling activities. The Court therefore ruled that petitioners could exercise their Fifth Amendment rights by making “a ‘claim’ by silence,” Garner v. United States, supra, at 659, n. 11, and refraining from filing the required forms.
The Marchetti-Grosso Court based its holding in part on the fact that the information-gathering scheme was directed at those “inherently suspect of criminal activities.” Mar-chetti v. United States, supra, at 47. Here, it is fair to say that the Government does not expect that most registrants will be in violation of the Selective Service laws. At first blush, the required information might therefore seem less like the Marchetti-Grosso inquiries and more like income tax returns, “neutral on their face and directed at the public at large.” Albertson v. Subversive Activities Control Board, 382 U. S. 70, 79 (1965). In Garner v. United States, supra, at 661, the Court noted that the great majority of persons who file income tax returns do not incriminate themselves by disclosing the information required by the Government. Because the Government has no reason to anticipate incriminating responses when requiring citizens’ self-reporting of answers to neutral regulatory inquiries, our cases put the burden of asserting a Fifth Amendment privilege on the speaker, and the right to make a claim by silence is not available.
*874To adopt this analogy, however, is to ignore the actual case or controversy before the Court. When Congress passed § 12(f), its focus was assuredly not prospective. As the majority explains, Congress forged the link between education aid and Selective Service registration in order to bring into compliance with the law the 674,000 existing nonreg-istrants, including the six appellees in these cases. Ante, at 849-850, and n. 4. Although as a general matter it is correct to say that registration is like an income tax return (neutral on its face and directed to the (male) population at large), § 12(f)-compelled late registration is directed to a group inherently suspect of criminal activity, squarely presenting a Marchetti issue.
In my view, therefore, young men who have failed to register with Selective Service, and at whom § 12(f) was substantially aimed, are entitled to the same “claim by silence” as Marchetti and Grosso. But these students are compelled to forgo that right under this statutory scheme. The defect in § 12(f) is that it denies students seeking federal aid the freedom to withhold their identities from the Federal Government. If appellees assert their Fifth Amendment privilege by their silence, they are penalized for exercising a constitutional right by the withholding of education aid. If they succumb to the economic coercion either by registering, or by registering but claiming the privilege as to particular disclosures, they have incriminated themselves.
Thus, I cannot accept the majority’s view that appellees’ Fifth Amendment claims are not ripe for review. If the Court is suggesting that appellees must wait until they are prosecuted for late registration before adjudication of their claim, that “is, in effect, to contend that they should be denied the protection of the Fifth Amendment privilege intended to relieve claimants of the necessity of making a choice between incriminating themselves and risking serious punishments for refusing to do so.” Albertson v. Subversive *875Activities Control Board, supra, at 76. As in Albertson, where a federal statute required members of the Communist Party to register, appellees are put to the choice of registering without a decision on the merits of their constitutional privilege claim, or not registering and suffering a penalty. A nonregistrant’s most efficacious opportunity to exercise his privilege against self-incrimination without simultaneously compromising that privilege is to challenge § 12(f) anonymously, as appellees have done in this case.
In sum, appellees correctly state that this law coerces them into self-incrimination in the face of a substantial risk of prosecution. That risk should be cured by a statutory grant of immunity. See Minnesota v. Murphy, 465 U. S. 420, 429, and 435-436, n. 7 (1984) (opinion of the Court); id., at 442 (Marshall, J., dissenting). The grant would confirm that Congress’ intent in passing § 12(f) was not to punish nonregistrants, but to promote compliance with the registration requirement. The Government “may validly insist on answers to even incriminating questions ... as long as it recognizes that the required answers may not be used in a criminal proceeding and thus eliminates the threat of incrimination.” Minnesota v. Murphy, supra, at 436, n. 7, and cases cited therein. See also Counselman v. Hitchcock, 142 U. S., at 564-565, 585-586. The Government has a substantial interest in obtaining information to assure complete and accurate Selective Service registration, but obtaining it under the compulsion of § 12(f), which is “capable of forcing the self-incrimination which the Amendment forbids,” Lefkowitz v. Cunningham, 431 U. S. 801, 806 (1977), is unconstitutional in the absence of immunity for the compelled disclosures. If Congress enacted § 12(f) to encourage compliance with registration requirements, and not to identify and punish late registrants, the constitutional legislative purpose would be fulfilled without implicating students’ Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.
*876I — I I — H
The aspect of the law that compels self-incrimmation is doubly troubling because a discrete subgroup of nonregis-trants bears the brunt of the statute. The Federal Government has a duty under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to guarantee to all its citizens the equal protection of the laws. Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U. S. 57 (1981); Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U. S. 497 (1954). Section 12(f), in my view, violates that constitutional duty.
The majority’s superficial, indeed cavalier, rejection of appellees’ equal protection argument, ante, at 858, n. 16, demonstrates once again a “callous indifference to the realities of life for the poor,” Flagg Bros., Inc. v. Brooks, 436 U. S. 149, 166 (1978) (Marshall, J., dissenting), and the inadequacy of the Court’s analytical structure in this area of law. We should look to “the character of the classification in question, the relative importance to individuals in the class discriminated against of the governmental benefits that they do not receive, and the asserted state [or federal] interests in support of the classification.” Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U. S. 471, 521 (1970) (Marshall, J., dissenting). See also San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 1, 98-99 (1973) (Marshall, J., dissenting). As a majority of the Court has noted, “the courts are called upon to decide whether Congress, acting under an explicit constitutional grant of authority, has by that action transgressed an explicit guarantee of individual rights which limits the authority so conferred,” and labels “may all too readily become facile abstractions used to justify a result.” Rostker v. Goldberg, supra, at 70.
The majority is factually incorrect when it states that the statute at issue in this case treats all nonregistrants alike. “Only low-income and middle-income students will be caught in this trap,” as was pointed out in floor debate on § 12(f). 128 Cong. Rec. 18356 (1982) (remarks of Rep. Mof-*877fett). Title IV education aid is awarded on the basis of need. See 20 U. S. C. §1089 (need analysis) and accompanying regulations. Although federal education aid is significant for a large segment of postsecondary students, more than three out of four postsecondary students dependent on family incomes under $6,000 are receiving Title IV aid. U. S. Dept, of Education, Office of Student Financial Assistance, OSFA Program Book 18 (July 1981) (hereinafter OSFA Program Book).19 In contrast, only 8% of students dependent on families with incomes over $30,000 receive any Department of Education-funded financial aid. Ibid. In the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant Program (now known as Pell Grants), 83.1% of the recipients are dependent on families with incomes of less than $12,000. Id., at 27. In the State Student Incentive Program, 69.4% of the recipients are in this category. Id., at 78 (figures for fiscal year 1977). It is therefore absurd to state that § 12(f) “treats all nonregistrants alike, denying aid to both the poor and the wealthy.” Ante, at 859, n. 17. The wealthy do not require, are not applying for, and do not receive federal education assistance, and therefore are not subject to the requirement that they file statements that they have complied with the Selective Service registration requirement, nor to the economic compulsion to provide incriminating facts to the Government in the act of late registration.20 Yet the obligation *878to comply with the law, and the failure to do so, know no economic distinction.
As appellees argued in the District Court and in their brief to this Court, by linking draft compliance with education aid, Congress has created a defacto classification based on wealth,21 and has laid an unequal hand on those who have committed precisely the same offense of failing to register with the Selective Service within 30 days of their 18th birthday. Cf. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356, 373-374 (1886). Further, § 12(f) clearly burdens these individuals’ interest in access to education, which “provides the basic tools by which individuals might lead economically productive lives to the benefit of us all.” Plyler v. Doe, 457 U. S. 202, 221 (1982). Many of our cases have stressed the extraordinary nature of *879the individual’s interest in education. See, e. g., Plyler v. Doe, supra, at 234, 236 (Blackmun, J., concurring); Vlandis v. Kline, 412 U. S. 441, 459 (1973) (White, J., concurring in judgment). I continue to believe that interest to be fundamental because of the relationship education bears to our most basic constitutional values. See, e. g., Martinez v. Bynum, 461 U. S. 321, 346 (1983) (dissenting opinion); Plyler v. Doe, supra, at 230-231 (concurring opinion). I have written at length to explain my position, San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S., at 110-117, and need not repeat the analysis here.22
Declining to look at how § 12(f) actually works, the majority is satisfied not only that the statute does not disfavor any classification, but also that it “is rationally related to the legitimate Government objectives of encouraging registration and fairly allocating scarce federal resources.” Ante, at 859, n. 17. But can Congress’ admittedly important interest in enforcing the Military Selective Service Act justify unleashing a dual system for its enforcement? While all nonregistrants are subject to imprisonment and fine, only those nonregistrants who qualify for education aid based on need are subjected both to that criminal process and to the economic compulsion imposed by the loss of financial aid. Federal courts cannot overlook the fact that Congress’ “understandable indignation” at nonregistrants, ante, at 856, n. 15, focused on a discrete subgroup.
If we accept that the purpose of § 12(f) is to promote compliance with Selective Service registration, then we must also consider the fit between the law and its object. The *880universe of nonregistrants at the time of this legislation was understood to be more than half a million men. The majority-does not offer any support for its statement that “[t]hose who fail to register . . . are a significant part of the class to which Title IV assistance is otherwise offered.” Ante, at 854, n. 13. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 11 (Government has no information on number of nonregistrants who are receiving financial aid).
We should reject the suggestion that the putative age-group overlap between the group required to register with Selective Service and the group pursuing postsecondary education is sufficient justification for this law. While it is true that the Equal Protection Clause does not require that legislatures resolve either all or none of a problem, Railway Express Agency, Inc. v. New York, 336 U. S. 106, 110 (1949), it is also true that “nothing opens the door to arbitrary action so effectively as to allow . . . officials to pick and choose only a few to whom they will apply legislation and thus to escape the political retribution that might be visited upon them if larger numbers were affected.” Id,., at 112-113 (Jackson, J., concurring). When the law lays an unequal hand on those who have committed precisely the same offense, the discrimination is invidious. Cf. Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 U. S. 535, 541 (1942). Further, the adverse consequences of § 12(f) on an identifiable group are inevitable, creating a strong inference that the adverse consequences were desired. Cf. Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney, 442 U. S. 256, 279, n. 25 (1979).
The floor debate provides support for that inference. The House sponsor of § 12(f), Representative Solomon, acknowledged criticism that the amendment singled out the disadvantaged. “Now, maybe we are discriminating against the poor. And if we are, I guarantee I am going to come back with legislation on this floor tomorrow and the next day and the next day and every day of this session with amendments that will prohibit any funds from being used for the Job *881Training Act if they are not registered, for any unemployment compensation insurance if they are not registered, and for any kind of taxpayers’ money if they are not registered.” 128 Cong. Rec. 18366 (1982).23 “They” are the poor — a discrete subgroup of persons who receive financial benefits from their Government. This animus cannot be rationalized away by the argument that Congress has an important interest in the fair allocation of scarce resources. Entitlement programs of far greater scope than education aid — for example, farm price supports — confer benefits to a broader spectrum of economic interests, while much of our tax law — oil depletion allowances, accelerated depreciation, capital gains, property owners’ deductions — favors the more advantaged. We can well imagine the effective political resistance that would follow Congress’ conditioning rich persons’ Government benefits and entitlements. I can think of no constitutionally valid purpose that would justify singling out the less advantaged for special law enforcement attention.
Congress has enacted other, constitutional means to enforce the Selective Service registration laws, means that do not involve invidious discrimination among subclasses of lawbreakers. The right to an education is too basic, and *882the governmental need to discriminate among nonregistrants is too tenuous for this Court to hide behind the screen of a rational relationship test to permit the misuse of nondiscriminatory education policy to meet the unrelated goals of military service.
IV
As the District Court noted, the issue before us “turns not on whether the registration law should be enforced, but in what manner.” Doe v. Selective Service System, 557 F. Supp. 937, 950 (1983). For the reasons stated above, I find § 12(f) of the Military Selective Service Act violative of the Fifth Amendment, both because it compels self-incrimination, and because it violates due process by denying persons the equal protection of the laws. I respectfully dissent.
Registration consists of completing SSS Form 1, available at any post office. The form requires the registrant to provide date of birth, sex, Social Security number, name, current and permanent mailing address, current telephone number, affirmation that the information provided is true, and date of that affirmation. A postal clerk date-stamps and initials the form, indicating whether the registrant produced identification. The registrant is under a continuing duty to notify Selective Service of changes in these data.
Oversight Hearing on Selective Service Prosecutions before the Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 97th Cong., 2d Sess., 10 (1982) (hereinafter Oversight Hearing) (statement of Director of Selective Service, Maj. Gen. Thomas Turnage (Ret.)) (hereinafter Turnage); Attachment 17, id., at 95-105 (Report of General Accounting Office). On the floor of the House the same day, Representative Solomon estimated 93% compliance and 700,000 nonregistrants. 128 Cong. Rec. 18355-18356 (1982).
Oversight Hearing, at 11 (statement of Turnage); see also id., at 7 (statement of Kenneth J. Coffey, Associate Director, (Military) Federal Personnel and Compensation Division, U. S. General Accounting Office).
Id., at 10 (statement of Turnage).
Id., at 47 (statement of Delton Franz for the National Interreligious Service Board for Conscientious Objectors). This group understands registration to be an integral part of conscription for war. Oversight Hearing, at 47-48. Cf. Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U. S. 57, 68 (1981) (“Congress specifically linked its consideration of registration to induction, see, e. g., S. Rep. No. 96-826, pp. 156, 160 (1980). Congressional judgments concerning registration and the draft are based on judgments concerning military operations and [combat] needs . . .”).
Oversight Hearing, at 35 (statement of David Landau, Legislative Counsel, American Civil Liberties Union, Washington, D. C.) (expressing concern that data collected for, e. g., tax and Social Security purposes, upon a promise of confidentiality, are being used for enforcement purposes, by exemptions from the Privacy Act of 1974, which generally prohibits data-matching among Government agencies). See also n. 9, infra.
Oversight Hearing, at 34-35 (statement of Landau) (contrasting regulations under prior draft, permitting application for conscientious objector status immediately after registration, and current regulations, presumptively classifying all registrants as available for induction, and permitting application for other status only within the 10-day period after receipt of a notice of induction). See 32 CFR §§ 1624.5(a), 1633.2(h), 1633.3 (1983). See also Oversight Hearing, at 42-43 (testimony of Rev. Barry Lynn, President, Draft Action).
Id., at 81-82 (statement of Turnage).
After a class action successfully challenged agency practice as a violation of the Privacy Act of 1974, § 2, note following 5 U. S. C. § 552a (statutory authorization required to collect Social Security numbers), Congress amended the Military Selective Service Act to require registrants to provide Social Security numbers. Department of Defense Authorization Act of 1982, Pub. L. 97-86, § 916, 95 Stat. 1129, 50 U. S. C. App. § 453. See Wolman v. United States, 542 F. Supp. 84 (DC 1982). Pub. L. 97-86 also authorized the President to require the Secretary of Health and Human *865Services to furnish the Director of Selective Service, for enforcement purposes, the name, date of birth, Social Security number, and address of any person required to register for the draft. 50 U. S. C. App. § 462(e).
The agency also has considered cooperation with nonfederal data systems, such as state drivers’ licenses, and private data systems on a fee basis. Oversight Hearing, at 84.
Id., at 13-14 (statement of Lawrence Lippe, Criminal Division, Department of Justice) (159 persons, self-identified nonregistrants or reported by others, referred to United States Attorneys for possible prosecution; Department “keeping in close touch” with Selective Service as it begins active enforcement program through use of Social Security and other records). The Court has granted certiorari in Wayte v. United States, 467 U. S. 1214 (1984), to consider the First Amendment challenge to the Government’s program of investigating and prosecuting persons identified through their vocal opposition to draft registration.
See 128 Cong. Rec. 9665 (1982) (remarks of Sen. Hayakawa).
Of course, there are other “rights of constitutional stature whose exercise [government] may not condition by the exaction of a price,” Garrity v. New Jersey, 385 U. S. 493, 500 (1967), such as the exercise of rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, but the posture of this appeal presents only a challenge to the burdens the legislation places on the exercise of Fifth Amendment rights.
The compliance form does not require the student to state either the date of his birth or the date of his registration. The verification of registration, SSS Form 3A, required of all students after July 1, 1985, contains a “Date of Record,” which would appear not to be the date of registration. 34 CFR §§ 668.26(b), (d)(1) (1983).
Registration Under the Military Selective Service Act, 18 Weekly Comp, of Pres. Doc. 8 (1982). The grace period extended from January 7 through February 28, 1982. N. Y. Times, Jan. 21, 1982, p. 14, col. 3. The Director of Selective Service, General Turnage, noted the correlation between extending immunity and encouraging registration compliance. Oversight Hearing, at 80-81 (“we have run clear off the chart”). See also id., at 5-6 (400,000 registered as a result of 2-month grace period).
Appellants’ contention that the threat of incrimination is speculative and that therefore the Fifth Amendment is not implicated rests entirely on the assertion that under current (but concededly not “immutable”) policy, prosecution for late registration is unlikely. Reply Brief for Appellants 15-16; Tr. of Oral Arg. 14. Just this Term, we acknowledged that “policy choices are made by one administration, and often reevaluated by another administration.” United States v. Mendoza, 464 U. S. 154, 161 (1984). Considering that the statute of limitations for Selective Service registration violations is five years from the date of compliance with the law, or, for nonregistrants, age 31, 50 U. S. C. App. § 462(d), as well as the unpredictability and wide range of public and political responses to the act of noncooperation with military service over the course of our history, a nonregistrant reasonably expects immunity for his compelled disclosures, not merely references to current policy. The hard fact is that the penalty for late registration is precisely the same as the penalty for nonreg-istration: a possible prison term of five years and/or a possible fine of $10,000.
Of course, the general rule that a person must affirmatively assert the Fifth Amendment privilege or be deemed to have waived it, see, e. g., United States v. Kordel, 397 U. S. 1, 7-10 (1970), is simply inapplicable in “the classic penalty situation [which excuses] the failure to assert the privilege.” Minnesota v. Murphy, 465 U. S. 420, 435, and n. 7 (1984); see also id., at 443-446 (Marshall, J., dissenting).
Appellees would have two choices: complete the registration form, or note the Fifth Amendment privilege on the incomplete form. In either case, should appellees be prosecuted, they would argue that the card could not be introduced in evidence, and that the Government has the burden of proving that it made no use whatever of the incriminating disclosures. Counselman v. Hitchcock, 142 U. S. 547, 585-586 (1982). They might also argue that, having claimed the Fifth Amendment on their registration card, they can in good faith certify to the educational institution that they have complied with the Selective Service requirement, and receive Title *872IV aid. A statutory grant of immunity would far better promote Congress’ aims.
Of course, the Government can always draw an incriminating inference when a person claims a Fifth Amendment privilege. In the usual case, however, the Government has, for example, subpoenaed a witness to testify, and thus has already identified him. Whether he chooses not to appear, or appears but invokes the privilege, the Government knows of his refusal to cooperate. The appellees and other nonregistrants are not known to the Government. Therefore, invocation of the Fifth Amendment by appellees gives the Government a different quality of information.
Although the OSFA Program Book is published annually, we cite to the 1981 edition because it contains the most recent statistics for distribution of federal education aid by income and ethnic group. Unless otherwise noted, the figures reported in the 1981 OSFA Program Book are for the 1978-1979 academic year.
Students who are members of ethnic minority groups are especially reliant on federal assistance to obtain training beyond high school. 56.7% of Basic Educational Opportunity Grant recipients, 52.1% of Student Educational Opportunity Grant recipients, and 46.4% of Work Study grants recipients, are ethnic minorities, OSFA Program Book 27, 65, 74, although these students are still a small percentage of the postsecondary student *878body. For example, only 14.3% of the college students in 1982 were minorities. U. S. Dept. of Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States 161, Table 258 (1984). Section 12(f) also penalizes only male students. In Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U. S. 57 (1981), the Court held that gender differences influence combat roles and military needs and therefore justify male-only draft registration. While I disagreed with that conclusion, noting that the statute “thereby categorically excludes women from a fundamental civic obligation,” id., at 86, even had I joined the Court I would protest the extension of this gender classification into the area of federal education assistance, an area in which gender is irrelevant and any classification based on gender is constitutionally objectionable. Men and women are similarly situated for purposes of the allocation of education funds. That principle should not be undermined by co-opting education law to enforce criminal laws.
The defects of the wealth classification are heightened because the classification is also based on youth. We would ignore our responsibility if we failed to give the statute before us most careful scrutiny. The young persons affected by this statute are in the very process of forging a means to establish their independence. Although enfranchised, they are less able to exercise their vote because of their transience and, frequently, state laws burdening student voter registration. See, e. g., N. Y. Elec. Law §5-104 (McKinney 1978). To my mind, they are “relegated to such a position of political powerlessness as to command extraordinary protection from the majoritarian political process.” San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 1, 28 (1973) (opinion of the Court); United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U. S. 144, 152, n. 4 (1938).
Where our prior cases have focused particularly on the extraordinary importance to the individual of elementary and secondary education, our concern that burdening access to education creates permanent class distinctions and political disadvantage is equally relevant here. Post-secondary education is the necessary prerequisite to pursuit of countless vocations, both professional and technical. Deprivation of a livelihood is too great a price to pay for the assertion of the Fifth Amendment privilege. Spevack v. Klein, 385 U. S. 511 (1967).
See also Job Training Partnership Act, Pub. L. 97-300, § 504, 96 Stat. 1399, 29 U. S. C. § 1504. The Act is a “new job training program for the drop-out youth who are not prepared for employment, for welfare recipients who need training to escape from dependency, [and] for the economically disadvantaged who cannot compete in the labor market without help,” as well as for dislocated workers. S. Rep. No. 97-469, p. 1 (1982). Title 29 U. S. C. § 1504 requires the Secretary of Labor to “insure that each individual participating in any program established under this Act. . . has not violated section 3 of the Military Selective Service Act” by not registering. See also Oversight Hearing, at 85 (remarks of Turnage) (positing linking compliance requirement with federal employment, unemployment compensation, Veterans’ Administration dependency benefits, Social Security survivor’s benefits, and Comprehensive Employment and Training Act programs).