INCREASINGLY, POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION IS A CHOICE FOR YOUTH WITH DISABILITIES
BY ALEXANDRA BAIG, MBA, CFP®
A friend of mine, who is close to my age and happens to have a diagnosis of Down syndrome is very proud of the fact that she attended and graduated from the Path to Academics, Community and Employment (PACE) program and National Louis University. She will tell you that she majored in clerical studies and that she later put her education to good use as an office assistant at L'Arche Chicago, the community of people with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities where she lives. Like all of her nine brothers and sisters, she too, launched her adult life from college.
When I work with a person with a disability and their family to create a future plan, we first have a conversation about what the person wants in life. It turns out that people with disabilities want the same things as the people without obvious disabilities: a home of their own, a job where they can contribute, a romantic partner, a community, friends, and things to do for fun. If you think back, many of us took our first significant steps towards obtaining those things when we went to college. So, it should not come as a surprise to anyone that people with disabilities often want to go to college. Nor should it come as a surprise that people with disabilities who complete post-secondary education have a higher success rate in the workplace, according to the Department of Education and several research projects. Link: search.proquest.com/openview/970b93f7d23bcd56905137c50f18a77a/1?pq- origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y
The first post-secondary opportunities for youth with disabilities emerged in the 1970's. Since then, the number of opportunities has increased dramatically. Today, Think College ( thinkcollege.net) has documented 300 post-secondary programs for youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities across the United States. Nearly every state has at least one program except Wyoming and West Virginia. New York State has the most, with 33. My home state of Illinois falls in the middle as host to 14. The programs range across public and private institutions, including four-year colleges, two-year junior or community colleges and technical/vocational schools.
The Think College initiative, which is national, but also has links to state-specific, focused resources, classifies post-secondary opportunities for students with disabilities into three categories.
• In the "substantially separate" model, students with intellectual and developmental disabilities take classes only with other students with disabilities, although they usually have the opportunity to participate in general campus events and activities.
• In the "Inclusive Individual Support" model, students with intellectual and developmental disabilities take general education courses for credit or audit alongside students without disabilities. Tailored supports are provided by a collaboration of the school's disability support office, adult disability service provider agencies and generic community services.
• In the "Hybrid" model, students with intellectual and developmental disabilities may take classes with other students with disabilities and also with students in the general education population.
Think College, as well as PACER's National Parent Center on Transition and Employment ( pacer.org/transition), are good sources of information on the numerous post-secondary opportunities for youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities and can help students and their families think through which characteristics are most important in determining the program or programs that will best assist the student's successful move into adult life. Families may want to consider and screen for things like whether the program provides opportunities to live on campus, whether the program offers financial aid, whether students can audit or take for credit general education courses, whether the student will emerge with a certificate or degree and how much access the students have to campus life outside the program. Since a primary reason for students – with and without disabilities – to obtain post-secondary education is to make themselves more employable, students will also want to consider to what degree a program facilitates student internships or work experiences both on and off campus.
Regardless of the nature and structure of the program, the post-secondary environment is significantly different from that of high school. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) does not go on to cover post-secondary education. Instead, education beyond high school is governed by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. As a result, the student's Individual Education Plan (IEP) will not follow them into the post-secondary environment. The ADA and section 504 are focused not on outcomes, but on access. Educational institutions are required to provide equal access to students with disabilities. This may include providing reasonable accommodations such as additional time to complete assignments or take tests, coaching, tutoring or note-taking services, course materials in alternate formats, accessible classroom locations and the flexibility to substitute some courses for the completion of degree or certificate requirements. However, the schools are not required to modify materials, requirements, practices or policies if this would alter the fundamental nature of their programs.
In addition, in the post-secondary setting, rather than the school taking the initiative to determine and recommend accommodations and services, the student and their family must approach and work proactively with the school's disability support office to put the necessary supports in place.
Students with disabilities who want to pursue post-secondary education may benefit from "dual" or "concurrent" enrollment; that is, from enrolling in post-secondary courses while they are still participating in their high school's transition program. There are two benefits to this approach. The first is that the student will be able to have in the post-secondary environment the level of support and type of services which has helped them to succeed in high school. The second is that the postsecondary courses can be paid for with IDEA Part B funds because they are determined to fall under the student's entitlement to a Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). Link: isbe.net/Documents/A-Transition-Guide-Education-Employment.pdf
As for any student, funding post-secondary education can be a challenge. Students with intellectual and developmental disabilities may be eligible for Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunities grants and Pell grants, as well as state-specific and institution-specific grants and institution-based work-study programs. In addition, students with disabilities, including intellectual and developmental disabilities, may be eligible for funding from their state's Divisions of Vocational Rehabilitation. A section of the Rehabilitation Act permits state vocational rehabilitation agencies to pay for postsecondary education tuition, so long as maximum efforts have been made to obtain grant assistance. Link: federalregister.gov/doc- uments/2020/02/28/2020-03208/state-vocational-rehabilitation-services-program
Students with disabilities and their families can also fund post-secondary education using 529 College Savings Plans or 529(A) Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Plans. Wearing my financial planner hat, I encourage families to pay close attention to any tax documentation generated by withdrawals from College Savings Plans. Frequently, the student is the beneficiary of a 529 plan, but not the owner. Typically, tuition is paid directly from the plan to the educational institution. Under these circumstances, plan assets should not be countable resources and plan distributions should not be countable income and neither should affect the student's eligibility for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Medicaid, including Medicaid waiver-funded adult supports. However, because tax documents are often issued carrying the Social Security number of the student-beneficiary, the documents may trigger questions about the student's ongoing eligibility for those benefits and the family will need to set the record straight. This problem does not arise when using an ABLE account to fund education because the ABLE is never a countable resource nor are ABLE distributions countable income for SSI and Medicaid eligibility purposes
As for any student, there are challenges to selecting and funding postsecondary education but once those hurdles are crossed, college can be a good fit for some students with disabilities. In addition to my work as a financial planner for people with disabilities and their families, I currently teach financial literacy at the Elmhurst Learning and Success Academy (ELSA) at Elmhurst University. My students are curious, hard-working and optimistic about their future and I believe their college experience plays a role in fueling all three characteristics and will contribute to their successful emergence into adult life.•
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Alexandra Baig maintains her own national financial planning practice, Companions on Your Journey, and also acts as the Benefits Specialist for Clancy & Associates, a Chicago-based law firm focusing on special needs planning. Alexandra has an MBA from the University of Michigan and her Certified Financial Planner™ designation and is a member of the Academy of Special Needs Planners. In particular, she is well-versed in the government benefits available to people with special needs and the rules governing them. Her goal is to help people with disabilities and their families make the most of public and private money to live the life they chose.