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Centers for Independent Living (CILs) are organizations mandated to be led by people with disabilities to serve people with disabilities and make systems change. CILs provide support to people of all ages, with all types of disabilities, to equip them with the skills to live independently in their communities, advocate for their needs, and develop disability pride. They work to make sure communities are built and operate with people with disabilities in mind.

Think College Insight Brief #26 provides a framework for inclusion of students with intellectual disabilities (ID) in higher education. It was developed by members of the Think College Special Interest Group Building Inclusive Campus Communities and collaborating partners from the Institute for Community Inclusion (ICI). To support implementation of this inclusive higher education framework, a series of reflective questions are provided for practitioners and administrators that they can consider when designing new or evaluating existing programs at institutions of higher education.

Think College Insight Brief #28 features the University of Central Florida which began planning for an inclusive college experience for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) at the end of 2014, and enrolled the first students in the fall of 2015. John Kotter’s eight-step change model describes a progression used by the planning team to build the inclusive experience.

Staff Perceptions on Factors Affecting Access to Intimacy Education and Intimate Experiences for College Students With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities reveals that a majority of staff members at inclusive postsecondary education (IPSE) programs for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) who participated in a national survey agreed that their students think learning about intimacy is a priority, but feel their students lack confidence to ask for support in learning more about sex and dating.

When state agencies and other groups work together with college programs for students with intellectual/developmental disabilities, everyone benefits. Working together helps everyone involved so agencies and other groups can learn about each other while they help students. Instead of working on their own, agencies and groups that start working together find new ways to help students with intellectual/developmental disabilities that go to college. This session explained how Vocational Rehabilitation, Workforce Innovation Boards, and others are working together for students.

This publication provides an explanation of the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act, or Perkins V, which is the reauthorization of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act (2006), and the benefits it provides to students with intellectual disabilities. There are many implications for students transitioning from secondary to postsecondary school who are pursuing career and technical education; those are detailed in this Fast Fact.

Completing a program of study and earning a credential is a mark of student perseverance and success. Student completion rates can tell us how well colleges and universities support students in completing an educational program. A research study by the US Department of Education reported students who completed non-degree certificate programs had higher rates of employment than peers who did not (Burns et al., 2020), and found 52% of students who began a non-degree certificate program completed it within three years.

The poster is about Think College Search, a directory of college programs for students with intellectual disability in the US. It includes information about the number of programs across the country, financial aid, housing options, and certificates students earn. It also shares how Think College collects information from programs for the College Search tool.

The Think College team presented this poster at the AUCD Annual Conference in Washington DC in 2023. This resource listing includes a downloadable copy of the poster and text only version of the poster.

The Minnesota P-20 Education Partnership Credentials of Value (CoV) work group has "sought to develop consensus for a quality criteria framework to identify credentials of value across both degree and non-degree credentials, discuss the policy and program areas where the framework could be applied, and understand the data needs to operationalize the criteria." The work of Minnesota Inclusive Higher Education Consortium (MIHEC) strives to incorporate the quality criteria framework for the inclusive higher education certificates offered and earned across Minnesota.