In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the growing number of college students on the spectrum:
At Inside Higher Ed, Elizabeth Finnegan and Margaret Finnegan write:By most measures of economic well-being, young college graduates surpass their peers with less schooling. And this disparity is greater than in earlier generations. To some extent, then, the fate of autistic people hinges on their ability to get college degrees. About a third of autistic high school graduates eventually go on to some kind of postsecondary education, at least for a while. That rate is higher than one might have expected years ago, but lower than for all other disability groups except intellectual disabilities or multiple disabilities.
Some positive changes are underway. More than 100 colleges now offer programs for students with autism, but most of them are private, expensive, residential programs. Meanwhile, research suggests that up to 80 percent of college students with autism at one point filter through community colleges, where students, often still highly dependent on family support, can live at home. Those institutions generally offer fewer resources for students with autism. If we are to meet the needs of neurodiverse students, public community colleges will need to lead the way.
In these days when most community college disability offices are underfunded -- Elizabeth’s community college does not even provide note takers -- meeting the needs of students with autism may seem daunting. But meaningful institutional changes do not need to strain budgets. For Elizabeth, the greatest support has often come from students who have chosen to act as social interpreters. A whispered word or two is often all she needs to better and more appropriately engage with her curriculum. Colleges like California State University at Fullerton already have mentorship programs that pair neurotypical and neuroatypical classmates.
We recommend expanding such programs so that peer mentors -- perhaps those offered the coveted privilege of priority registration -- work side by side with autistic students in the classroom. Of course, that brings us back to the privacy concerns voiced earlier. Peer mentors can only work with students who are willing to self-identify in the classroom as having autism, which is why autistic students themselves must also be involved in making campuses more responsive to their needs -- and that will only happen when students with autism bring neurodiversity into conversations about campus diversity.
