Grants for Students with Disabilities
Get Money if You Qualify for Special Needs
College students across the board generally need to borrow from a plethora of financial sources in order to complete a college education. Financial sources include federal grants and loans, state-based grants and scholarships, college and university grants, fellowships and scholarships, grants, scholarships and fellowships from professional organizations, and private loans from lending institutions.
Students with disabilities not only may be fettered with the same funding issues, but they also face challenges within a traditional collegiate environment not the least of which is accessibility and mobility. The accessibility issue was pretty much handled with the signing into law in 1975 of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Statistics show that there are over 40 million Americans with some sort of physical or mental disability. The IDEA was recently amended in 2004 and has reshaped the way our educational system deals with special education needs.
Organizations and Associations
Students with disabilities are advantaged when it comes to grants and scholarships. Since the IDEA made it illegal to segregate disabled students, there has been a concerted push to offer incentives for students with disabilities to pursue their educational and career goals. Many organizations are outstanding supporters:
- National Federation for the Blind - a variety of scholarship and grant awards for blind students
- Jewish Guild for the Blind - grants available for undergraduate students
- National Association of the Deaf - scholarships and grants for graduate students
Colleges and Universities
Colleges and universities know their campus environments are more fulfilling academically, intellectually and socially when they provide a diverse student body. As a means to those ends, colleges have not only ramped up grants and scholarships to underrepresented populations, but they solicit and invite disabled students to join their communities:
- George Mason University - contact the Disability Resource Center
- George Washington University - contact Disabilities Support Services, ask for their brochure, "Financial Aid for Students with Disabilities"
- Western Michigan University - fellowships for disabled students pursuing degrees in rehabilitation sciences.
- Gallaudet University is a college for the deaf or hearing impaired
Not only are there grants for individual students, but the technological support that enables disabled students to participate matters as well. Grants also provide many institutions with the funds to cover the cost of cutting edge captioning equipment. There are even some universities that are implementing videoconferencing capabilities or virtual classroom to engage students with disabilities.
Please take a look over our page on disability scholarships also.
