Think College: Expanding Higher Education for Students with ID ~ 1006

Tim Villegas: Meg Grigal and Cate Weir from Think College want you to know that inclusive higher education for people with intellectual disabilities is within reach.

Meg Grigal: College gives you so many chances to grow, mature, meet people socially, and explore different potential jobs. It is a place where many people go to start their life path, and giving that option to people with intellectual disabilities opens a lot of doors for them.

Tim Villegas: And college isn’t just for learners who have been included in K–12 general education settings.

Cate Weir: Even for those students where inclusion wasn’t as good as they might have wanted it to be, I hope they’ll still consider looking at college and seeing where they can go if that’s something they want to do.

Tim Villegas: But how can learners with intellectual disabilities access these programs?

Cate Weir: I think it’s important to know that, for example, you don’t have to have a regular high school diploma to apply to these programs. If your district or your state is one that gives IEP diplomas or non‑standard diplomas of some sort, that does not put those students out of reach of college.

Tim Villegas: My name is Tim Villegas, and you are listening to Think Inclusive, presented by MCIE. This podcast exists to build bridges between families, educators, and disability rights advocates to create a shared understanding of inclusive education and what inclusion looks like in the real world.

Tim Villegas: For this episode, I speak with Meg Grigal and Cate Weir from Think College about why it is important for individuals with intellectual disabilities to have the option to go to college. We discuss what inclusive post‑secondary education programs for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities really look like, and how the data shows that these programs are successful, with learners getting jobs after graduation at three times the rate of the national average.

Tim Villegas: Thank you so much for listening. And now, my interview with Meg Grigal and Cate Weir from Think College.

Tim Villegas: Today on the podcast, we’d like to welcome Meg Grigal and Cate Weir from Think College. They’re here to talk about all things college for people with intellectual disabilities. Meg and Cate, welcome!

Meg Grigal: Thanks. Happy to be here.

Cate Weir: Thank you, Tim.

Tim Villegas: Meg, to get us started, would you introduce yourself to our audience? And then after Meg, Cate, you can do that as well.

Meg Grigal: Sure, happy to. Hi everyone, I’m Meg Grigal. I work at the Institute for Community Inclusion at the University of Massachusetts Boston, where I direct a number of federal grants—most of them associated with expanding access to higher ed for people with intellectual disability.

Cate Weir: Hey, I’m Cate Weir. I work at the same place as Meg at UMass Boston, and my job title is Project Coordinator for the Think College National Coordinating Center.

Tim Villegas: Why don’t we get started on why people should be thinking about individuals with intellectual disabilities going to college—why is that important?

Meg Grigal: Good question, Tim. While college isn’t necessarily everybody’s choice when they leave high school, it is an option for everyone who doesn’t have a disability or has a disability other than intellectual disability. For a really long time, people with intellectual disabilities didn’t even have the chance to think about it. It was never offered as an option. And because college gives you so many chances to grow, mature, meet people socially, and explore different potential jobs, it is a place where many people go to start their life path. Giving that option to people with intellectual disabilities opens a lot of doors for them.

Tim Villegas: Cate, did you have anything to add?

Cate Weir: I always say pretty much the same kind of things. This movement of inclusive higher education for people with ID has been around for about 20 years, and it aligns with the movement for inclusion in more inclusive settings in K–12 education.

Cate Weir: As students were treated in more typical ways and had more typical educational experiences in K–12, I think that really fed the desire to continue to have typical experiences after high school, including the choice to go to college.

Tim Villegas: In your experience, who is more likely to go to an inclusive post‑secondary program—a student who has been included through K–12 education or a student who has not been included?

Cate Weir: You’re incredibly better prepared to go to college if you’ve been included throughout your educational experience; that goes without saying. The preparation is so much better. Those students have so many more of the experiences and skills through that inclusive education that it makes the transition a lot easier. Also, the expectation that you’ll go to college increases dramatically when students are included with their typical peers.

My only provision is I don’t want people to hear that and think, “Well, we’ve been fighting for inclusion and my district doesn’t do a good job,” or “My kid hasn’t been able to benefit as much,” and then think, “This isn’t for my kid.” Yes, inclusion absolutely impacts positively their desire, their thinking about college, preparing for college, and having the skills to go. But even for those students where inclusion wasn’t what they wanted it to be, I hope they’ll still consider looking at college and seeing where they can go if that’s something they want to do.

Tim Villegas: Meg, did you have anything to add?

Meg Grigal: I agree with Cate—it really does help. But with the data we collect through the National Coordinating Center, we work with colleges and universities all over the country that are receiving federal funds to develop or expand higher ed programs for students with ID. The students coming into those programs, in many cases, only had segregated or specialized instruction. While they might have additional support needs and it might take them time to develop academic skills to navigate coursework or employment experiences, they make up for lost time in college. Sometimes staff need to help with those skills, but if you hadn’t been included throughout high school that doesn’t preclude you. In fact, you’re going to benefit as much if not more, because suddenly the world opens to you and you find out, “Oh wow, I can do this.”

Given the opportunity and supports, any student who really wants to go to college—and that motivation is key—can succeed.

Tim Villegas: So what I’m hearing is for families—even with young children—who have a dream that their child will go to college, but for whatever reason the message they’re getting is “that’s not a realistic expectation,” you’re telling them not to be discouraged.

Meg Grigal: They hear that all the time.

Tim Villegas: So you’re telling them not to be discouraged.

Meg Grigal: I would agree. Hope and vision—while it sounds soft and squishy—parent expectations are like granite when it comes to predicting students’ outcomes. If a parent believes a student is going to get a job, go to college, live independently, or not live in poverty, those students are sometimes 20, 30, 40 times more likely to achieve those outcomes, depending on the study and data set. Parent expectations are bedrock. They will determine outcomes far more than what an IEP says or what testing or assessments say.

Tim Villegas: Let’s define what these programs are exactly. I think there’s a misunderstanding when we talk about college that it’s exactly the same path as a typical student. If the student doesn’t have the grades or whatever they need to go on that typical path to college, these inclusive post‑secondary education programs are not the typical path. Help our audience understand what it is—and also for the parents who are listening.

Cate Weir: It’s important to know you don’t have to have a regular high school diploma to apply to these programs. If your district or state gives IEP diplomas or non‑standard diplomas, that does not put those students out of reach of college. There is an alternative pathway into these programs. We hope that once you get in, you’re having a very typical and authentic college experience—taking courses, doing internships, going to social events, and living on campus. But the pathway in is different.

SAT scores are not required. ACT, typical grades, or certain classes on your high school transcript—those typical things are not part of the application process for students applying to these programs. It’s more: Do you have a desire to go to college? Do you want to get a job after college—real work for real pay? Do you want to live as independently as you can? Do your parents want you to get a paid job and live as independently as possible? There’s a different set of admission requirements and a different admissions process.
Programs almost exclusively offer a non‑degree pathway, so you’re not earning a bachelor’s or associate degree. But you are earning, hopefully, a meaningful credential—perhaps focused on a particular career goal, such as early childhood or forestry, or whatever your areas of interest might be. Typically they are non‑degree programs with an alternative admissions process.

Tim Villegas: So graduates that complete the program—what do they go on to?

Meg Grigal: It’s hard to speak on behalf of all graduates—we don’t have data on all graduates. As the National Coordinating Center, we are charged with evaluating programs. There’s an acronym called TPSID—Transition and Postsecondary Programs for Students with Intellectual Disability. It’s a very long, special‑ed kind of name. It’s a really good program and it’s been funded since 2010.
Since that time, we’ve collected data on every program that received federal funds: every class each student has taken, every work experience students have had. In 2016, we were allowed to collect outcome data. This TPSID data doesn’t represent all programs in the country, but the outcomes are quite good.

We’re seeing students leaving the programs employed at 67%. That’s paid employment, paid by the employer, at or above minimum wage. The national average for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities is 19%. So this is more than three times better outcomes. We now have data up to three years out—so it’s not just “they had a job a year later.” We’re still seeing decent employment rates three years later. They’re also living more independently and have high levels of life satisfaction. A smaller portion of students continue post‑secondary education—going back to school in a different program or seeking to build on whatever credits they’ve acquired in TPSID. The emerging outcomes are really positive.

Tim Villegas: It sounds like it. What do the programs look like? I know it’s hard because you can’t say what all of them look like, but I’ll pull it down to a micro level. I was recently at the Division on Autism and Developmental Disabilities conference in Clearwater, Florida, and went to a presentation by the Arc of Jacksonville—University of North Florida—and their On Campus Transition program. It was nice, because I don’t think I’ve been to a presentation by a program that laid it all out. I’m using that as a touchpoint to ask some questions.

For instance, the students in their program audit typical classes. Their students take up a spot in that class. It’s not like they’re a visitor; they actually take up a spot. If there are 20 spots, they take up a spot. The professors are asked whether they want to do this or not, and so, unlike in K–12 where it’s “you teach all kids,” in college it seems different. The support specialists—the transition people in the program—work with the professor on adapting or modifying the syllabus for that student, with different learning objectives. Does that sound typical, or are there variations? What does it look like for a student to go to college in an inclusive post‑secondary program?

Cate Weir: What you describe is somewhat typical. When I talk about this generally to families: students should be auditing classes based on their person‑centered plan. The choice of class is based on their interests and career goals. They also have other kinds of learning experiences—ideally individualized—to help them become more independent, learn soft skills needed to be successful in the workplace, and so on. Ideally these are individualized and inclusive in natural settings.

I like your example where the faculty member has to agree for the student to be in their class. That really is part of it, because one huge difference between high school and college is there is no mandate or right for students to go to college. It’s a hard shift for families and students. They’ve been working for years to understand entitlements and protections. In college it’s much more about asking permission—“Is it okay with you?”—and people can say “No.”

Tim Villegas: OK.

Cate Weir: Once programs are well established, hopefully they’re working hard to have strong collaborative relationships with faculty, and faculty learn that it’s a terrific experience to have a student with disabilities in their classroom. They welcome it. But at the end of the day, a faculty member can say, “No, I don’t want that student in my class,” and a college can say, “We don’t want to have this program anymore.” It’s a different environment, which requires different advocacy skills from parents and students.

A big piece of what college programs do for families is supporting them to transition from being the parent of a kid under IDEA—where you’re in there every day, advocating and reminding about the law—to being the parent of a young adult who needs to develop their own advocacy skills, their own voice, and make their own choices. This is within a college environment that isn’t set up for a ton of family intervention. There’s some—family open houses, newsletters, keeping families involved—but college faculty don’t speak to students’ parents about what’s going on in the classroom. They don’t go to meetings with parents to update them on performance.

That’s a big transition for families as well. We work with programs to acknowledge the difficulty of that transition and to support families through it—but it does have to occur. You didn’t even ask me that question, but I got there.

Tim Villegas: No, I’m glad you brought it up—about expectations for parents. While you said that, I was thinking that you addressed the things that happen in the classroom, but students basically live on campus for many programs, right?

Cate Weir: Of the little over 300 programs, a little over a hundred are residential.

Tim Villegas: Oh, so not quite half. OK.

Cate Weir: There are many community college programs that are non‑residential. Sometimes on a residential campus the program may not offer residential support. You do have to look at that.

Tim Villegas: For those that offer residential support, what would be the different expectations for the family if a student lives on campus? I would imagine you’d want as much independence as possible.

Cate Weir: Mm‑hmm. Talked a lot. You want to talk?

Meg Grigal: I can.

Tim Villegas: Meg, what do you think?

Meg Grigal: Parents’ expectations and what programs provide don’t always align when it comes to the residential experience. Sometimes parents expect, “You’re going to help them wake up,” or “You’re going to help them clean their room.” Most programs will say, “No. You’re a college student. You’re going to learn how to wake up and get to your class.” We’ll give support as you get started. Students with intellectual disability who’ve never lived away from home might require additional or longer‑term supports, but the goal is the student participating like other college students.

What the program provides should be student‑specific. Some students might need more supports than others. A lot of programs use peer mentors as social supports. They might provide academic or campus navigation support. They build mechanisms because you don’t want staff going around waking students up. This is about inclusion and providing authentic college experiences. You know what college students do? They miss classes sometimes because they overslept, and sometimes they don’t do a great job on assignments. I’m not saying you want to plan to fail, but you want to leave room for growth, and part of that is the dignity‑of‑risk piece.

Let a student take a course and if it doesn’t go well, they’ll reflect: “Why didn’t that go well? It was a big lecture class,” or “I thought I liked early childhood; I hate little kids.” That’s part of the learning. Making this a perfect experience where everything goes right is not the intention. You have to help parents recognize that those blips and diversions from what looks like success are actually part of the process.

Tim Villegas: Is there anything—from when you first started this work until now—that has surprised you?

Cate Weir: I happened to say something about that yesterday. We were talking about the huge leap it is for young people with intellectual disability to live on campus in their own dorm and have expectations—with supports—that they’re going to get themselves up, take their own medication, make it to classes on time, and keep to a schedule that isn’t the same every day. Remember, college schedules aren’t every day nine to three.

What we hear over and over is how incredibly proud students are of themselves, and parents say, “They never in their lives got themselves up without me. Now they’re getting themselves up.” When the environment expects a lot of you, you often rise to the occasion, and that seems to happen a lot.

We hear when things don’t go well—a student isn’t successful, a family is disappointed with the level of support, or a program has a very challenging experience. At the national level we won’t hear every story, but considering the scale, it’s amazing how few times we hear these. You’d think it would be the riskiest thing in the world and imagine all the things that can go wrong—yet many things don’t go wrong, or when they do, they’re managed by a combination of good program staff and college resources. Colleges are environments set up to support young people living on their own for the first time. In those ways, the systems colleges have in place are what students with ID need as well—because they’re the same things any 18‑year‑old needs if they’ve never done their own laundry or managed food choices.

Tim Villegas: Right.

Cate Weir: Through a combination of available resources, it goes pretty well. Over probably 10,000 students with intellectual disability—probably many more—have participated in one of these programs, graduated, and gone on to good jobs. The world hasn’t ended. Nothing terrible has happened. That still surprises me—in a good way.

Tim Villegas: That’s great. Thank you for sharing that.

Tim Villegas: Meg, do you have any thoughts?

Meg Grigal: When you brought up laundry, it made me laugh. I have an 18‑year‑old college freshman, and she said in the first two or three weeks she witnessed at least two or three of her peers cry when faced with doing their own laundry. These are not people with any identified disability—they had to call their parents and say, “I don’t know what to do.” They were overwhelmed.

I think that’s a beautiful thing, because students with intellectual disability aren’t the only college kids who don’t know how to do their laundry or haven’t been responsible for certain things before. In one program we worked with during the planning stage, we met with residential services. We were tiptoeing around, saying, “What we’d like is every student has their own dorm room; they get matched with a roommate.” They said, “Yeah, we do that for everybody. Get them in the system.”

We said, “They might need supports around independent living.” They said, “Yeah, we do that for everybody. We have a ‘how to do your laundry’ class for all incoming freshmen. We’ll roll them right into that.”

It was affirming. Colleges work with working parents. Colleges work with parents of young children. These are different student profiles. They’re used to diverse learners. We’re just adding a slightly different group of diverse learners. They’ve done this for years. We’re asking to tweak things to make it work for one additional set of diverse learners.

Tim Villegas: Great point. How many programs are available right now—maybe listed on your site? I’m sure you have that data.

Meg Grigal: It’s about 312 in our public‑facing directory.

Tim Villegas: Looking forward, do you have a goal—like “we’d love X more programs”—or is that not something you set?

Meg Grigal: We don’t fund programs and we don’t determine who gets funds. Sometimes there’s a misconception because Think College is the only entity people are aware of at the national level, so they might think we have input on who receives federal grants—we don’t. We apply just like everyone else for our federal dollars.

Having said that, we constantly work with colleges and universities who come to us and say, “We’re trying to get something off the ground. Can you help with planning? Staffing? Inclusive course access? Employment?” I wouldn’t say we have a target. What popped into my head was Ruth Bader Ginsburg—“When will there be enough women on the Court? When there are nine.”

Tim Villegas: Yeah—when all of them are.

Cate Weir: We have this part of our presentations: we say, “Isn’t it great—there are 312 programs,” and then the next slide is “That’s 6% of the institutions of higher education in the United States.” So don’t get comfy. We aren’t where we need to be. When every higher ed program in the country has a welcome mat for students with ID, I’ll say we’ve met our target.

Tim Villegas: Yes. I love that.

Tim Villegas: I want to make sure we talk about what’s on thinkcollege.net and who you want to talk to. Is it people in higher ed thinking about a program? Parents? Educators? Who is your target audience?

Meg Grigal: I’ll do a brief overview, but Cate has really created and rebuilt our website based on the needs of the people who come to us. I would say everybody you just mentioned. We’ve created resources for families, students, educators, transition educators, higher ed personnel, peer mentors, and program personnel. Program personnel is an emerging group because the number of programs has grown, and so has the need for support and training. We’ve created mechanisms for both direct support and peer‑to‑peer support. I’ll let Cate talk about the website specifically.

Cate Weir: On thinkcollege.net, we have resources that describe all the different projects we have, because Think College is an umbrella for multiple projects—one of which is the National Coordinating Center that I work for, and multiple others that Meg and other staff are involved with.

For the public, you can find out about all the training events we’re doing. There are recorded webinars you can watch. There’s a resource library searchable by topic, with filters. We also create pages that are curated resources, because the library has well over a thousand resources and it can be overwhelming. Of course, our college search list. There’s also a quick link to our help desk—Monday through Friday. We try to be really responsive and take questions from anybody on any topic related to post‑secondary education for students with intellectual disability.

We have 16 technical assistance consultants—on staff or consulting—who answer questions on a wide variety of subjects. It’s one of my favorite things. I and others talk to a lot of families who come to Think College and try hard to learn everything by reading and clicking, and then just go, “Oh my gosh—what next?” We’ll get on the phone and help you look through things or answer your questions. And of course there are tons of resources for colleges and universities looking to develop or enhance programs.

Meg Grigal: I want to make sure your audience knows there’s some low‑touch stuff if people want to get involved. We have affinity groups—little communities of practice of people who get together quarterly to talk about employment, social access on campus, VR, research, state consortium development, and more. You can come and listen; you’re not required to attend regularly.

We also run a couple of private Facebook groups: one is a parent group for parents to talk to parents about experiences and questions; the other is a program staff group so program people can talk to other program people. During COVID, when the world shut down, we developed that resource and did support groups for program staff who were scrambling to shut down campus, transition to online learning, and in some cases have students move home.

This group of professionals is the most generous, supportive group. They came to the table: “We tried this—use this tool—we modified this—here, take it.” They crowdsourced solutions in a dynamic and generous way. I’ve been in special ed or disability education work for 30 years, and it was phenomenal to witness how these people had each other’s backs. It’s a good feel.

Cate Weir: When you mentioned the groups, I wanted to mention we also have an Emerging Advocates group for students—run by people with disabilities for people with disabilities—that meets regularly. Right now we have an opportunity for college students with intellectual disability to apply to be a Think College Policy Advocate and get training on policy advocacy.

You can find these when you stay in touch with us by signing up for our newsletter—once a month in your inbox with new things we’re developing and activities we’re involved with.

Tim Villegas: That’s a lot. Thank you for laying that out for our audience. If you’re listening and interested in anything we talked about, please visit thinkcollege.net and use that help desk.

Cate Weir: Absolutely.

Tim Villegas: Is there anything else that you wanted to talk about while we’re wrapping up—anything we missed?

Meg Grigal: I want anyone listening to walk away with: this is possible. When I started this work in 1998 and everybody looked confused when I mentioned it, I’m surprised that we’ve had federal funding—supported by both political parties—for 12 years. I’m surprised we’ve had federal legislation supporting students getting federal student aid. The legitimacy of this field and its potential.
I’m grateful we now have 12 years of data that supports our supposition from 15 years ago: if people with ID go to college, they will have better outcomes. The data supports it. These students can go to real classes, get real jobs, and leave with a credential to get a better job. It’s possible because it’s happening, and we have data. We need to make it the reality for more people.

Cate Weir: One more website note: we also have a Student Corner—a page for students to learn more, written for them, to help them explore options and what it means to go to college. On our homepage menu bar, “Students and Families” has the Student Corner and the Family Resources page.
There’s a lot aimed at families, but it helps transition educators as well. It helps everyone learn what it means to transition from high school to college. We talk about ways to use your IEP to get ready for college. We talk about skills students benefit from having when they go to college. There are lots of student stories. Even though it says it’s for families, families can benefit—and educators as they become good ambassadors for this message to their students and families. We hope you will—know that it’s possible, that thousands of students have done it and continue to do it, and think about how we can prepare our students to go on to college. We ought to be doing just that.

Tim Villegas: Meg Grigal and Cate Weir, thank you so much for your time and for being on the Think Inclusive podcast.

Meg Grigal: Thanks for letting us join.

Cate Weir: It’s been our pleasure. Thank you.

Tim Villegas: Think Inclusive is written, edited, and sound‑designed by Tim Villegas and is a production of MCIE. Original music by Miles Kredich.

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