From U.S. News and World Report:

Katie Apostolides, a young woman with Down syndrome, is among a growing cadre of students with intellectual disabilities who are benefiting from college programs tailored to their needs. New initiatives that were started late last year offer hope for a dramatic expansion in such programs around the country.

Thanks to changes in the Higher Education Opportunity Act and two multimillion-dollar federal grants awarded in December 2008, experts say, the number of post-secondary programs for students with intellectual abilities is expected to expand dramatically from its current roster of about 150 programs.

Presently, fewer than a quarter of students with intellectual disabilities have been able to participate in post-secondary education, according to an ongoing U.S. Department of Education study.

Recent research shows students with intellectual disabilities who completed any type of post-secondary education program earned 1.7 times more per week than their intellectually disabled peers who received no post-secondary education.

“Everyone deserves to go to college, students with intellectual disabilities included,” says Debra Hart, a researcher at the University of Massachusetts Boston’s Institute for Community Inclusion. For a list of existing programs, see the ThinkCollege.net website.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 14th, 2009 at 10:32 am and is filed under college, 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.