Students with learning disabilities or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder often need different support systems at college, and those extra services usually come at price.
“High school was rough for me, and I never thought the college was going to be an option. But with the encouragement of my parents I attended Landmark College in Vermont,” says Ana Hubberts, a student with ADHD and dyslexia.
After completing an associate degree with honors at Landmark College, a private school exclusively for students with learning differences, Hubberts decided to transfer to the University of Arizona, where she is now a senior, because of its Strategic Alternative Learning Techniques Center.
“The school that I was at originally was very pricey, but everything was included. And now coming to U of A , it’s lower, but you pay for things separately like the honors college and the SALT Center,” says the 22-year-old Chicago native.
[Read about challenges facing parents of teens with learning disabilities.]
Tuition and fees at Landmark College totaled $51,330 for the 2015-2016 academic year — a higher price tag compared with the University of Arizona, which charged $30,025 to out-of-state students.
While all U.S. colleges are required to have an office to support students with learning disabilities, some schools have specialized programs.
The cost of these support programs can range from around $1,300 to more than $13,000 per academic year — depending on the school and the program.
Here are a couple actions students with learning differences can take when choosing a school.
— Check whether an in-state school has its own learning disability support program: While experts say that the majority of these programs are at private schools, there are a handful of state schools that offer special needs fee-based services. Among these schools are the University of Iowa and the University of Connecticut — to name a couple.
The SALT Center at Arizona, which dates back to the early 1980s, supports more than 600 students on campus. The center is self-supported and doesn’t receive any federal, state or university funding.
[Discover how to succeed in college as a learning disabled student.]
Fees for tutoring and support services at the center range from $1,350 for life coaching to $2,800 per semester for comprehensive services, which includes unlimited tutoring.
“Families do tell us it is challenging to pay for these services in addition to in-state and out-of-state tuition,” says Rudy M. Molina Jr., director of the center, who says many of the students are from out of state.
Most of the students who use the SALT Center have a learning disability or ADHD, and some are diagnosed as having “comorbidity, where you have overlap between the two,” he says.
“Autism is really only a small population — it’s only about 2 to 4 percent of those enrolled,” he says.
Eastern Michigan University is one state school that provides special programming for students diagnosed with autism.
Monica Shapiro sends her 20-year-old son Sam to EMU because of the school’s Autism Collaborative Center.
“We always were thinking that if we could do some college-type program for him, but this is ‘real’ college,” says the Flint, Michigan , mother, who adds that the cost of the program is almost as much as in-state tuition, at more than $13,000 a year.
[Learn how students with disabilities can find the right college fit. ]
“Their whole system is funded by what we parents pay,” Shapiro says. “The state is supposed to educate all people, but I’m willing to pay for it because it’s a really great program.”
— Research programs at private schools — some are cheaper than state programs: “The pattern that I’ve noticed is a preference for smaller and more local schools,” says David Greenberg, founder and president of Florida-based Parliament Tutors, an education company that specializes in tutoring.
Greenberg adds that parents with students with learning differences tend to lean toward private schools for that reason.
Experts say a few private schools with well-known specialized programs include American University in the District of Columbia, the University of Southern California, Northeastern University in Massachusetts and the University of Denver.
For more than 30 years, the University of Denver has provided fee-based support to its students with learning differences through its Learning Effectiveness Program. The program is separate from the school’s tuition and fees: $46,362 for the 2016-2017 academic year.
“We’re one of the cheapest programs of our kind,” says Jimmie Smith, director of the Learning Effectiveness Program at DU, which supports around 300 students. “The program has a set fee — $1,150 per quarter — which is likely going up in the fall.”
Elaina Fenstermacher, a DU senior from Pittsburgh who is diagnosed with audio processing disorder, says she transferred to DU from Clarion University of Pennsylvania because of its academic fit and the LEP program.
“LEP costs money to be a part of, and luckily, I qualified for a scholarship,” she says.
Smith from DU’s LEP says the program has a limited number of scholarships — all of which are need based.
Fenstermacher, who is on course to complete her major in strategic communications studies, says, “Tutoring sessions every week and having someone to understand my difference has helped me be successful.”
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Plan for Greater College Costs for Students with Learning Disabilities originally appeared on usnews.com
