Disability-Friendly Colleges

Some Help In Choosing a School With the Right Services for You

Oct 19, 2009 Megan Drummond

It's October and that means football, Homecoming games and Halloween. For many high school seniors, it also means the time has come to start looking at colleges.

College can be the best and most exciting time in the life of a young adult. It can also be a thoroughly nerve-wracking and intimidating undertaking for a student with a disability.

Many high school seniors consider the basics when looking for a college to attend – academics, location, athletics and, to a lesser extent, social life. Students with disabilities consider all these things, but also need to take into consideration the extra needs that are associated with their disability.

Does the college provide personal care attendants?
What about transportation around campus?
Do they provide academic assistance, such as help typing papers and taking notes?

Many incoming college students will be surprised to find out that colleges are not required by law to provide any of these things; they are only required to provide equal access to education.

Although the majority of the approximately 2500 four-year colleges in the United States have a disability resource office on campus and provide some kind of disability services, only four provide services that are comprehensive enough to allow a student with a severe disability to live on campus and fully integrate into campus life.

University of California at Berkeley

The home of the disability rights and independent living movements, UC Berkeley is still dedicated to helping students with disabilities experience all things academic and social that the school has to offer while helping them to develop the skills and confidence to live independently.

To assist students in meeting these goals, UC Berkeley developed The Residence Program targeted toward incoming freshman and transfer students who have never lived on their own or managed their own personal care attendants before. Over the course of two semesters, or one academic year, students are taught the skills needed to coordinate their own PCAs. At the end of the first semester, students are required to hire their own attendants and quit using the PCAs provided by Berkeley.

Some of the other services UC Berkeley offers include peer mentors, on-campus van service, tutoring and career counseling.

Edinboro University of Pennsylvania

Edinboro began offering services to visually impaired students many years ago and these services evolved over time to include all disabilities. The university now offers perhaps the most extensive range of disability services of any college or university in the United States.

Edinboro employs a round the clock staff of personal care attendants in the dormitories. The university also owns a fleet of lift-equipped vans to help students get around campus and to certain destinations off-campus. Students are responsible for scheduling personal care and van services.

Other disability services that Edinboro provides include routine wheelchair maintenance and repair, academic aides, meal aides, recreation facilities, an adaptive computer lab, tactile lab and intramural and varsity sports.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

UIUC is a school of firsts in terms of disability services. It was the first to offer accessible campus buses, the first to offer a formal study-abroad program for students with disabilities and it had the first collegiate wheelchair basketball teams.

Similar to Berkeley, UIUC has noted that “many students with severe disabilities are often ill-prepared at the time of high school graduation to successfully adjust to the rigorous University of Illinois academic environment, while concurrently acquiring the knowledge, skills, and experience necessary to live independently (including hiring, training, scheduling, and managing personal attendants without assistance).” At Beckwith Hall, students learn to manage their personal care needs with their academic lives. After a transitional period, staffers at Beckwith Hall will continue to do reference and background checks for the students, but the students are expected to interview and hire their own attendants.

Some of the other services offered at UIUC include 24-hour emergency personal care assistance, career counseling, tutoring, private rooms with semi-private bathrooms, in-room emergency call system and more.

Wright State University

A high degree of accessibility is the main draw of this fairly young school, established in 1967. A maze of tunnels was built to connect all the major buildings on campus and one dorm, making it possible for students in wheelchairs to navigate the Dayton, Ohio, campus easily.

Fellow WSU students who have received specialized training provide attendant care at Wright State during the day. At night, the student is matched with an able-bodied roommate who will be able to help in an emergency.

Other services offered at Wright State include career and vocational support services, adapted athletics, meal assistance, tutoring, a computer lab and academic assistance.

The services offered by these schools should offer you a baseline to work from when choosing a school to attend.

The copyright of the article Disability-Friendly Colleges in Disabilities is owned by Megan Drummond. Permission to republish Disability-Friendly Colleges in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.