Graduation season is upon us and over 3 million students will be moving on from their High Schools to bigger and better things. From college plans to immediate jobs to traveling at home and abroad, students of all backgrounds will be let loose into the world to start their own lives.
This includes the many young adults whose lives involve the daily use of wheelchairs.
According to the US Census, there are 2.7 million wheelchair users who are 15 years or older in the United States. The same census estimates that there are more than 121,000 children under 15 years of age who rely on wheelchairs for daily use.
That means that there are hundreds of thousands of young adults who are either ready to hop in their wheelchair accessible vehicle and ship off to college or will be ready to attend in the coming years. While ADA standards have helped US colleges come a long way in accommodating students in wheelchairs, there is still much to be done.
Thankfully, you don’t have to sift through the over 4,000 universities to find out which ones rank highest when it comes to handicap accessibility. The experts at College Express have compiled a very impressive list of colleges ranked by their wheelchair accessibility.
Here are the top five schools that make up the top wheelchair accessible colleges in the US:
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Edinboro University of Pennsylvania (Edinboro, PA)
Edinboro University nabs the number spot on this list. Among the many services that the university provides to students with disabilities are:
- Academic Aide System
- Attendant Care Program
- Life Skills Center
- Meal Aides
- Occupational Therapy
- Tactile Laboratory
- Van Transportation
- Wheelchair Maintenance
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Hofstra University (Hempstead, NY)
The runner up is Hofstra University, located on Long Island, not too far from NYC. Hofstra works with each of its new students to carefully determine which accommodations are appropriate for their needs.
In addition to their accommodations, Hofstra officials promise “programs and services (that) will encourage active involvement from students in managing their own disabilities, while offering coaching and support along the way.”
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St. Andrews University (Laurinburg, NC)
St. Andrews is known for its amazing handicap accessibility standards and programs that ensure “equal access to facilities, programs, services and resources of the university.”
If you want to head south for your college experience, this is a great university to attend.
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Stanford University (Stanford, CA)
If you are destined to for the Ivy league, Stanford is one of the top universities when it comes to handicap accessibility.
Stanford’s Office of Accessibility takes care to reach out to students with disabilities and make sure that they have all the resources they need to succeed at the university.
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University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (Champaign, IL)
Located two and a half hours south of Chicago, the midwest’s choice of handicap accessible universities is the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.
“Students with disabilities have a variety of options for accessible living environments at the University of Illinois,” according to the university’s website. Among their accessibility on campus are three dorms that are equipped to handle students with even the most severe disabilities.
Did you or do you attend a university that you feel went above and beyond ADA regulations? Let us know in the comments below!