Readers of the Chronicle of Higher Education are vigorously debating the wisdom of a provision of the Higher Education Act that would improve access and supports for students with disabilities. The measure awaits the president’s signature.

The bill would for the first time allow students with intellectual disabilities to receive some types of federal financial aid for higher education, and would establish two national centers to support students with disabilities in higher education.

Some commenters to the site question the appropriateness of the measure, arguing that scarce higher education funds should be reserved for those who can best benefit from them. Others say such views underestimate the capabilities of people with intellectual disabilities and amount to prejudice.

An excerpt from the site’s comment section:

1. I think I’m missing something here – federal financial aid so a mentally retarded student can attend college? – Lee

2. We have admitted some students to our institution who “graduated” with special education type certificates of attendance. I have yet to find a student in this situation who was successful. – M

6. With so few dollars in Title IV gift aid and a Formula that leaves many working poor not eligible for any asistance other then taking on loan debt why in the word would you give funding to those who can not possibly benefit from higher education?

If you want to help those with intellectual disabilities why not fund the programs that serve this group? Accross the nation thousandds of the “formal” transistional programs have been cut and these programs do provide services that this group can benefit from. Another example of our tax dollars at work and how capable of making rational decisions those in Congress really are.  – Jan

7. The last frontier of prejudice will persist among the “intellegencia” until the end:

When people no longer prejudge others for the color of their skin, their religion, affectional preferences, ethnicity, sex, height and etc., it will always be OK to pitch jibes and insults and compromise the lives of those, through no fault of their own, who are born or who acquire intellectual challenges.

For people with cognitive impairments, the eternal pecking order is the fence in the barnyard we can never get over…. – Heather Dunbar

9. Assisting people with disabilities should be one of our goals in education. But, we should definitely look to see if the individuals can and will benefit from the assistance. Do not continue to waste the $$$$$ on project that are unsuccessful. – Jim Nickles

17. The ignorance about disabilities that is shown in many of the comments is astounding! This group of citizens experiences more discrimination than any other … We are all here because we value education and knowledge. Why deny that opportunity to anyone? Doesn’t that fly in the face of what we believe? Or do we believe education is good for some and not others? — Wazoo

This entry was posted on Friday, August 8th, 2008 at 5:18 am and is filed under college/secondary education, intellectual/developmental disabilities, post-secondary education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post