Disability and College Choice

Abstract

Although a college degree is an increasingly important gateway to economic advancement in the United States, high school students with disabilities enroll in postsecondary education at lower rates than nondisabled students. The disparities in college access for these students indicate that there may be differences in how they are navigating the college choice process, or the process of deciding whether and where to go to college, in comparison to their nondisabled peers. In order to better understand how students with disabilities make college-related decisions, this narrative inquiry examined the college choice experiences of three high school students with disabilities. Using a disability studies lens and a conceptualization of college choice that combines models proposed by Perna (2006) and Webb (2000), I studied both how students navigated the pre-matriculation stages of college choice as well as how their understanding of disability and their experiences with special education impacted their choice processes. This narrative inquiry is presented as three stories of college choice, one for each participant, and is based on semi-structured conversations and observations with participants as they worked on their college applications over the course of the 2022-2023 academic year. The narrative themes from participants’ stories suggest that students’ understanding of disability and their academic experiences in school, including experiences with receiving special education services, shaped their student identities and influenced their processes for deciding to pursue postsecondary education, exploring and selecting college options, and completing college applications. Factors such as parental involvement, career aspirations, and school resources, which are traditionally thought to be important in the college choice process, were also important for my participants. Implications from this research include finding ways to build accessible college-related supports into the secondary school curriculum, normalizing special education in school communities, and identifying places where application forms and admissions processes are impeding students’ success.