Completing College: Antecedents of Success in Post-secondary Education for Students with Disabilities

More students with disabilities are enrolling in higher education than ever before. During that 2015–16 academic year, 19% of male undergraduates and 20% of female undergraduates reported having a disability (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016). In 2022, 15% of college students reported having attention deficit disorder (ADD) or attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (American College Health Association, 2022). Conversely, in 1978—3 years after the passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act—only 2.6% of undergraduates reported a disability (NCES, 2003). As more students enter college, policy makers, researchers, and higher education leaders are increasingly shifting their focus toward success outcomes such as academic achievement, college persistence, degree receipt, and return on investment. In 2015, for example, the Obama administration launched the college scorecard to give students and families data about colleges, such as costs, graduation rate, loan default rate, average amount borrowed, and post completion employment; in doing so, the administration argued that the key to boosting college completion was ensuring that students and families had information to support them in applying to a school that would help students achieve their educational goals (U.S. Department of Education, 2016). Similar efforts have been echoed across state governments.