Jill Fahy spends much of her time in her small office located on the basement floor in a building on the southside of Eastern Illinois University’s campus, fielding phone calls from desperate parents seeking placement for their autistic child.

Fahy is the director of STEP, Students with autism Transitional Education Program, which assists students through peer mentoring, tri-weekly study sessions, social gatherings, executive functioning skills, independence learning and other support. The program has room for 30 students total, including those currently enrolled, so for the 2023 academic year, Fahy only has seven spots available. “We have six, seven, eight times as many people trying and calling than we can even accommodate,” said Fahy. 

As the number of people diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder continues to rise, the demand for specialized college programs is outpacing the supply. In 2010, about one in 68 children, age eight or younger, were diagnosed. In 2018, about one in 44 children were diagnosed, according to the CDC. In the United States, approximately 550,000 children with ASD will be transitioning to adulthood over the next decade and an estimated 45% will pursue some form of higher education, vocational or technical training, according to research by Scott L. J. Jackson, Logan Hart, and Fred R. Volkmar published in 2018. While the number of students needing these supports has yet to plateau, colleges have been slow to provide specialized support programs and less than 80 exist across the country. 

The transition from high school to college is met with many challenges for all people, neurotypical or neurodivergent. The transition to college for students with learning and neurological developmental disabilities, such as autism, may be much harder, according to a Washington Post article written by Mikle South and Jonathan Cox in 2017. 

Autism Spectrum Disorder is a neurological developmental disability, summarized by social, communication, and behavioral challenges, according to the CDC. Essentially, ASD is a neurological difference in the way people think, problem solve, and socialize, and is often impacted by a person’s environment. 

Dr. Crystal I. Lee of LA Concierge Psychologist, is a clinical psychologist specializing in Transition to Adulthood, and Adult Autism and ADHD. Dr. Lee explains that autism is experienced differently by each person and that is part of the endless variations that exist on the spectrum. People tend to assume that the more “normal” an autistic person presents, the more “mild” their case is, but that can be harmful and counterintuitive to understanding the neurodiverse condition, according to Dr. Lee. 

In a 2010 TED talk, “The world needs all kinds of minds”, by Temple Grandin, a world-renowned autism spokesperson, she said, “The autistic mind tends to be a specialist mind, good at one thing, bad at something else.” Education is too generalized to normative neurological functioning. 

“We’ve got to work on developing all these different kinds of minds. One thing that’s driving me really crazy...I’m seeing a lot of smart, nerdy, geeky kids, and they aren’t very social, and no one is working on developing their interest in something like science…You’ve got to show kids interesting stuff,” said Grandin.