The Success of College Students with Learning Disabilities: Factors Related to Educational Attainment Susan A. Vogel and Pamela B. Adelman

77ns study reports on the educational attainment of 62 college students with learning disabilities as compared to a sample of 58 peers matched on gender and ACT composite score (±1 point or exact match). All students were native English speakers and were enrolled as degree candidates in a small, competitive, private, midwestern college. Groups were compared on age, high school preparation and performance, college grades, GPA at the end of each year of study, graduation and academic failure rate, and time taken to complete degree. Factors that may have influenced outcomes are discussed as are implications for college admissions officers, college students with learning disabilities, service providers, and academic advisors.

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n the decade of the 1980s we witnessed a rapid increase in the number of students with learning disabilities (LD) attending colleges and universities (Astin, Green, Korn, Schalit, & Berg, 1988; Decker, Polioway, & Decker, 1985; Shaw & Norlander, 1986). According to the American Council on Education's freshman norms for 1988 (Astin et al., 1988), 6% of all full-time/first-time college freshmen reported having at least one disability. This percentage is more than twice the number of freshmen with disabilities of a decade ago. Moreover, 1% of the total number of freshmen with disabilities self-identified as LD; however, this is a minimal estimate of the total number of college freshmen with LD, because a large number of university students with LD transfer from one postsecondary institution to another. Many others take a part-time load and, by design, transfers and part-time students were excluded from Astin et al.'s data. The U.S. Department of Education (1987) reported that 10.5% of all post-

secondary students in the nation are disabled, that is, approximately 1.3 million out of a total of 12.5 million students, including those enrolled in community colleges, professional schools, and doctoral programs. Of the 1.3 million disabled students, 12.2% (approximately 160,000) reported having a learning disability. Moreover, this significant increase in the last 10 years in the number of students with learning disabilities attending colleges and universities is accompanied by a commensurate concern among service providers regarding the academic failure rate of these students. In a survey of 911 high school graduates with learning disabilities, Sitlington and Frank (1990) found that 1 year after graduation only 6.5% of the 50% who had enrolled in some type of postsecondary setting were still in school. Even with greater numbers of students with LD enrolling in postsecondary institutions and the growing concern for their academic success, very few institutions are systematically monitoring these students' academic

performance or graduation and attrition rates. What little information we have indicates that there is some reason to be concerned about degree completion by students with learning disabilities. Bursuck, Rose, Cowen, and Yahaya (1989) sent a survey to the 336 members of the LD Special Interest Group of the Association on Handicapped Student Service Programs in Postsecondary Education (AHSSPPE). Members of this organization are directors or coordinators of services for students with handicaps in community colleges and public and private colleges and universities. Out of a total of 197 respondents, only 20 (10%) responded to the question regarding the percentage of students who graduated or completed a course of study. The average graduation or completion rate for those who responded was 30%. However, the authors did not describe the degree earned (2-year or 4-year) or separate those who reported graduation rate versus completion of a course of study, nor did they provide comparison group data, making interpretation of this information difficult. Nonetheless, a 30% graduation or completion rate, compared to approximately a 50% national graduation rate as reported by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities ("Years in College," 1990), is a matter of some concern.

JOURNAL OF LEARNING DISABILITIES VOLUME 25, NUMBER 7, AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1992 Downloaded from ldx.sagepub.com atPAGES FLORIDA430-441 INTERNATIONAL UNIV on June 11, 2015

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VOLUME 25, NUMBER 7, AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1992

To date, only Vogel and Adelman (1990) have addressed the question of educational attainment in a systematic way. They compared a group of 110 students with learning disabilities (the LD group) to a random, stratified sample (the RSS group) of 153 students attending the same college. The groups were matched on gender and year and semester of entrance to the college. They were then compared on high school preparation and performance, ACT composite, college grade-point average (GPA) at the end of each semester and at exit, graduation and academic failure rate, and time to complete the bachelor's degree. The present study is a sequel to the 1990 one and was undertaken in an effort to clarify some unexpected findings. Below we present an overview of these earlier findings so that the reader can better understand the purpose of the present study. Vogel and Adelman (1990) predicted that students with learning disabilities enter college with significantly poorer high school preparation, as reflected in the number of courses in the core curriculum (i.e., English, social studies, math, and science) for college-bound students completed with a grade of C or better. The high school variables of greatest interest were those four found to be the most highly correlated with college exit GPA and included the number of regular (rather than developmental or remedial) English and math high school courses completed with a grade of C or better (r=.40, p

The success of college students with learning disabilities: factors related to educational attainment.

This study reports on the educational attainment of 62 college students with learning disabilities as compared to a sample of 58 peers matched on gend...
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